The New York Daily News boasts on its website about the community service it is providing with its seventh annual week-long free prostate cancer screenings.
They profile a 45-year old African-American man who came in for screening because his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years ago. His race and his family history do put him at higher risk.
But then the News says that man “is one of thousands of men who have sat down for a simple blood test.” What they don’t tell you is that most of those thousands are not at high risk of a cancer that could kill them. But the News goes on to quote a local urologist who says, "You save one person, you're doing a good job."
Yes, you are. But at what cost? The doctor and the newspaper should have explained how many men need to be screened in order to save one life. How many will have false-positive tests, telling them they have a problem when they really don’t? How many will endure the anxiety, discomfort and expense of a biopsy needlessly? And how many men who do have true elevated PSA levels actually have a cancer that will hurt them in their lifetimes?
That’s why whenever someone calls this a “simple” test, I shudder. There’s nothing simple about it, nor about the decision to have it or decline it.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force doesn't recommend annual PSA screening. These are the facts that should have been provided.
But advocacy journalism is sometimes blind to the facts that people need to make good health care decisions. Rather than sponsoring week-long free screenings, the paper would provide a bigger public service by sponsoring open, balanced, evidence-based discussions of the harms and benefits of various screening tests. That would make consumers smarter. And it would hurt no one.
Posted by schwitz at June 26, 2006 07:06 AM | TrackBack