This forum is for the discussion of anything to do with Prostate Cancer. There are only four rules:
No fundraisers, no commercials (although it is OK to recommend choices of treatment or medical people based on your personal research; invitations to participate in third-party surveys are also acceptable, provided there is no compensation to YANA);
No harvesting e-mail addresses for Spam;
No insults or flaming - be polite and respectful at all times and understand that there may be a variety of points of view, all of which may have some validity;
Opinions are OK, but please provide as much factual evidence as possible for any assertions that you are making
Failure to abide by these simple rules will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your posting privileges.
Since this is an International Forum, please specify your location in your post.
One has to be a little careful in depending too much on a newspaper report referring to a study or, indeed to the Abstract of a study. In the case of the former, the reporter may not have a full grasp of the subject and will often merely re-hash a press release. In the latter case, the Abstract will often omit some of the basic information required to evaluate the relevance of the outcome.
As Phillip says, the disclaimer at the end of the piece is pretty important:
The study has some problems ……. data on the seriousness of the cancer in each case was not available…..
I have not read the entire study ( here is the Abstract) , but this article referred to has two very important qualifications which would lead me to query the value of the article and to suggest that anyone relying on it should try to read the entire study:
1. The study did not look at staging and scoring of the tumor, meaning that some of the differences seen might be due to differences in disease rather than in surgical quality….
And
2. This was noteworthy, the authors stated, because a greater proportion of older men and those with other health problems chose minimally invasive surgery over open radical prostatectomy. These men would automatically be at higher risk for complications.
I have read many experiences of men who have had the procedure and it seems quite amazing how rapidly they recover from what is still a major surgery, and as the article bears out The risks, however, tended to decrease the more experience a surgeon had under his or her belt. So….whatever your chpice – make sure the team you choose is the most experienced one with a good record.
