Interesting Wash Post article

Here is an interesting Washington Post articles that makes the point that doctors and patients are less likely today to hit cancer with every possible weapon. It also criticizes the war metaphor for cancer:

/www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-new-cancer-treatments-less-is-more/2018/09/09/5b71ab96-95c1-11e8-a679-b09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.fc543b919b82

It briefly discusses what nearly everyone here probably knows, that active surveillance is increasingly popular among men with PCa.

Interesting. We are making progress in treating cancer.

Andrew

Thanks for posting. BTW, I had no idea that bladder cancer was as common as it is...

Thanks for posting this excellent article, Fiddlecanoe. It makes sense that with many cancers, less is more. And I personally find that the war analogies used to describe cancer treatment are less than helpful and can lead to unnecessary treatments, misplaced hopes and poor medical choices. Side effects as collateral damage? Take that line out for a walk and see where you end up.

I'm of a mind that genetics will provide important clues to treatment. We are, of course, in the infancy of using genetic information to good effect. "One size fits all" is another throwaway phrase that needs to be pitched into the waste bin when it comes to cancer.

BRCA gene linked PCa is rare. I remember only one or two men on the sight that have been so diagnosed and that was a few years ago. Having it does open a few additional treatment options. Even with women's breast cancer it is less than 10% and about 15% with ovarian cancer. about 1% of men have the gene and it increases PCa to about 1 in 5. Without the gene PCa is about 1 in 6. This is from a study by Oxford University and references the studies IMPACT (regarding PCa) and Embrace (regarding BRCA causation and why many with the gene never get the cancers).