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.
Proscar has been found to prevent Prostate Cancer in 25% of Men, But Doctors are afraid to prescribe it - WHY. http://prostatecancernetwork.ning.com/forum/topics/proscar-doctors-not
Re: Life or Death decision, or Ignorance - Proscar.
John:
Although I know nearly nothing about Proscar, it seems to me that prescribing a powerful drug on the chance that it will work on only 25% of men borders on foolish thinking.
I will admit that I am a minimilest when it comes to drugs (even aspirin) as all drugs have side effects.
Re: Life or Death decision, or Ignorance - Proscar.
Hmmmmm.........
I was interested to read this in the report:
Upon a re-analysis of the data, however, that uptick in risk for more aggressive tumors turned out to be false: finasteride did not raise the risk for an aggressive tumor, it simply helped make prostate screening more sensitive, so these tumors were spotted more readily.
This seemed to me to be somewhat simplistic and not in accord with my understanding. When the original report was released, showing what appeared to be an increase in more aggressive diagnoses and a reduction in 'normal' diagnoses, there was a good deal of angry reaction, including a piece from Dr Gleason (the doctor whose name is attached to the prostate cancer grading system). The thrust of these responses to the original study was that finasteride (as Proscar is scientifically known) changed the structure of prostate gland cells in such a way that the Gleason grading system could no longer be used to point to the aggressiveness of the tumour. And since there is no other good measure, it was irresponsible to say that the cause of the apparent aggressiveness was Proscar.
I always felt that, if this was the case, then perhaps the fact that the number of prostate cancer cases had been apparently reduced by Proscar may have had more to this change in cell structure. By this I mean that cells which might previously have been identified as 'prostate cancer' might now be given some other label because their structure had been changed by Proscar.
In any event, John, I think your header is misleading and inappropriate. The decision to take Proscar is not, as you say a "Life or Death Decision." This report refers in it's header to a"...Drug That May Prevent Prostate Cancer" and as the doctor being interviewed says:
"As a healthy person, why should I pay to take a drug that has some chance of causing me side effects to prevent something that I may or may not get down the road?"
I think we all have to be very careful about taking media reports at face value.Prostate men need enlightening, not frightening
