subject: Keeping Doctors Responsible For Delaying Diagnosis Of Prostate Cancer [print this page] Consider that your physician physically examines your prostate for any signs of potential cancer including an enlargement or a hardening of the prostate and whether there are any growths present on the gland. Imagine the doctor orders blood tests, including a PSA test which is used for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. So far, so good. This is how to check whether a male without any symptoms of prostate cancer may actually have it. Imagine the results actually were abnormal.
Some doctors take the position that prostate cancer screening, specifically PSA testing, is of little or no value. These physicians hold that screening has little, if any, value. One factor, however, remains constant. If of a screening test is abnormal the patient ought to be informed about the results and either be referred to a specialist or be advised about the option for diagnostic testing, such as a biopsy. Once more, however, some physicians also believe that, at least under certain instances, a male patient who is diagnosed with prostate cancer does not need to undergo treatment right away and just needs to carefully monitor the cancer.
If the physician does not give the patient the option to undergo screening or does not tell the patient about the abnormal test results the patient's prostate cancer may spread and metastasize without the man even knowing he may have cancer. However, if a doctor noted that the patient's prostate was enlarged or there was a nodule on the gland and the PSA test results indicated abnormally high levels of the antigen and the physician did not tell the patient of the abnormal results, the individual would likely believe that meant there was no need to follow up.
In case the patient does really have cancer, not telling him that he may have cancer will lead to a delay in his diagnosis.
A delay might, in turn, allow the cancer to reach an advanced stage. Once a cancer metastasizes treatment can at best lessen the pace of the progression of the cancer and reduce the effects (such as pain) of the cancer. There are cases where a physician did screen a male and the test results were abnormal but the physician failed to tell the patient and did not recommend further testing or to refer the man to a specialist.
Screening tests can yield false positives. This means that certain patients with abnormal screening results will not have cancer. Yet doing screening tests for cancer is meaningless if there is no follow up as it gives the patient an incorrect sense of security thinking he has no cancer as the physician tested him but did not tell him that the tests showed the possibility of cancer. Doctors commonly recognize that there is a requirement for follow up when the results of screening tests come back as abnormal.
Keeping Doctors Responsible For Delaying Diagnosis Of Prostate Cancer
By: J. Hernandez
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