According to a study done by researchers at Tufts Medical Center, approximately 76% of people responding were willing to take blood tests to discover if they would develop Alzheimer’s, breast or prostate cancer or arthritis in the future. Even more notable is the fact that they would be willing to pay for these tests.

Close to 15,000 people took part in the survey which was published in the journal Health Economics. Of the hypothetical tests listed, 87% of respondents were willing to take the prostate cancer test and 81% would take the breast cancer test. Seventy-nine per cent (79%) would take the arthritis test and 72% would undergo the Alzheimer’s test.

Dollar amounts that people were willing to pay ranged from $300 for the arthritis test to $600 for the prostate cancer test.

Older people, women, and those with higher education degrees were less likely to take such medical tests. Those who said they would be tested noted that positive test results would cause them to spend more time with loved ones, organize their finances and travel more.

Peter J. Neumann, lead author and director of the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center, stated, “This study brings us a step closer to understanding people’s preferences and motivations for wanting a diagnostic test, even if it has no bearing on subsequent medical treatment”. He noted that people want information and are willing to pay for it.

Would you have a predictive medical test?

Another recent study done by researchers at the University of California San Francisco and reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that men 75 years of age and older who were diagnosed with prostate cancer were not as likely to receive local therapy as men 55 years or younger.

Findings revealed that treatment options offered to older patients were fewer than those offered to younger men. Older men may be diagnosed with a more aggressive prostate cancer and, consequently, have a lower chance of survival. Their treatment choices have been more limited, usually androgen deprivation therapy or watchful waiting, and, for those who died of prostate cancer, that could be the cause of their higher death rates.

Researchers noted that treatment options such as surgery or radiation can be successful in older men. In addition, they recommended that disease risk and life expectancy should be the determining factors in treatment decisions and not age.

A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology observed 2700 men with nonmetastatic PCa from 1990 to 2008. The study found exercise may improve survival odds against a prostate cancer death.

Stacey A. Kenfield of Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the study noted that “…men with prostate cancer should do some physical activity for their overall health, even if it is a small amount, such as 15 minutes of activity per day of walking, jogging or biking. Vigorous activity may be especially beneficial for prostate cancer, as well as overall health, at levels of three or more hours per week.”

The study noted that men who exercised vigorously for three or more hours a week had a 61% lower risk of PCa death than those with less than 1 hour a week of vigorous activity.

It determined that the longer and more vigorous the exercise activity was, the better the
benefits were. The more time spent on exercise activities resulted in a
lower the risk from dying of prostate cancer.

Where are my walking shoes?

Recently the American Journal of Epidemiology gave the results of a study that showed a significant result in the reduction of the risk of prostate cancer by the use of aspirin or some other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

However, in another study just released from another group, the data and conclusions do not support the use of these drugs in the chemoprevention of prostate cancer.

Recently, I attended a conference where more than 10 presentations on various prostate cancer topics all included various results from various studies on various issues from screening protocols to surgical versus radiation treatments and other treatment options.

It is very confusing almost to the point of creating decision paralysis. Which treatment is best? Well, it depends! Do you screen or not? Well, it depends. There are many studies, from all over the world looking at the same questions and providing contrary or supporting results from previous studies.

What do we do? Ask your doctor is the usual response. This is appropriate but then you are in the hands of one doctor who may be using the best of his (or her) training, but that may differ from other colleagues similarly acquainted with the same data and deriving a different conclusion.

Enter healthcare reform and the potential limitations that may result for treatment options, testing options and restrictions on what will and will not be paid and the average patient is in a real quandary about next steps.

I do not have a quick answer but this confusion supports my mission to have people become active and aggressive in their health care treatment and to know and understand the issues and questions they need to ask for themselves or family member to make the best possible decisions.

Become the CEO of your healthcare team and learn what you need to know so you are prepared to be prepared when and if you need a health care treatment decision

Or could it? Could collaboration with pink and blue dilute effort and results? Why are some companies, organizations and sports teams willing to become involved in one good cause or several and not others. But yet look at the $10MM winnings that was the result of the recent golf tournament. There seems to be money for some things that are “feel good” and not for other opportunities to “do good”. Why is one baseball manufacturer willing to make pink bats for the All Star game and not think that blue bats for other games such as Division or League Championship Series are just as needed. Then, of course, there are those people that say that baseball is baseball and and not a place to promote a cause or fundraiser.

It would be nice for the major organizations to think about a collaboration that could increase momentum, raise awareness even more and get more support. But then politics, turf, ego and dilution of message might all get in the way. So we continue to struggle. Prostate cancer has had some great successes in recent years with PCF, Zero, Us TOO and others. Lots of talented and dedicated people. If all the people who are active unofficially, such as those who blog or write e-mails or lurk on websites, were to collaborate somewhat more formally as a grass roots and adhoc group to raise the message to their peer groups, make men more comfortable about disclosure and encourage more active participation, maybe we could move the needle a couple of more points each year. Informal groups can be very effective.

The internet give access to millions of people and is a great way to make the message more alive.

In the past two days, I have had one colleague who just turned 40 complain that his doctor made prostate cancer part of his physical examination. Then I read an article that a 35-year-old man wrote about his recent diagnosis with prostate cancer.

Two different situations, all focusing on the same issue. Prostate cancer is potentially more prevalent than most people are willing to admit. If you don’t know what causes something, why not rule out its existence. I have heard all the arguments and read many of the studies and heard many doctors recently comment on the PSA controversy.

I am not convinced that abstinence from testing is a good idea. PSA testing is not that expensive, not invasive and, while not conclusive, may do more good than harm. When my doctor told me that we will watch and wait for the next PSA test and see if it is still going up, I asked, “what then?” He said, “We will do a biopsy.” If it is inevitable, then why wait? I didn’t.

At the end of the day, you are the patient and you need to learn, evaluate and then you decide. People spend more time learning and evaluating about buying a car than they do learning and deciding about a life- threatening medical issue. Let’s change that thinking. Prostate cancer has no apparent minimum age barrier.

I lost a colleague two nights ago. The daughter of a business consulting client. No, not from prostate cancer but liver cancer that was extraordinarily aggressive and rare in a 40-something woman with a five year old child. A healthy person, full of energy, until that first pain. Symptoms that suggested something going on. But a month prior a Cat scan showed nothing. Makes you wonder and should make you concerned because cancer can be a silent killer.

The message is don’t mess around – get screened, pay attention to changes in your body and be aware.
A sad story. We are working hard to reduce the number of these with our campaign to get more people to become the “CEO” of their life and health and make choices that will reduce the number of sad stories. Remember – Hope Is Not A Strategy to not getting cancer.

A recent clinical trial in the fight against brain cancer at the University of California San Francisco treats the tumor by creating a vaccine made from the patient’s own tumor itself. The vaccine alerts the body’s immune system to attack multiple points on the cancer cells. In eight cases where the procedure has been used, no cancer has returned. (CNN.com, David Martin – 9/11/10).

Exciting stuff even though no conclusions can be drawn yet but think of the possibilities. Prostate cancer also has a vaccine currently in use (Provenge [Sipuleucel-T]) that has recent FDA approval that marshals the immune system of people already with prostate cancer to become part of a treatment regimen.

Makes you want to go out and raise billions of dollars for more research. Let’s hear it for more blue ribbon awareness.

This is an unbelievable story. I am so surprised that a doctor would be so detached from the patient.
A friend of mine, who has a family history of heart disease and whose routine visits to his doctor can best be described as infrequent told me the following at a recent dinner.
He said I went to the doctor about two years ago for a routine physical. After the physical I took the lab work and my doctor snail- mailed me the lab results in an envelope, without any comment.
This conversation resulted as I handed him a copy of my new book on prostate cancer. We started talking about screening and I mentioned my PSA results that started my whole PCa experience.
This is a professional guy and he asked “what is PSA?”. He is 60. He didn’t know. His doctor never discussed this with him and yet he sent his labs to him by mail. He is overweight, eats red meat like he takes in oxygen. I suggested he find a new doctor.
What do you think? I would love your comments.

Light the White House Blue this September!

Oh, hell, what’s the problem? Politics? Competing interests? Too much “if we do it for one we have to do it for all” thinking. Nonsense!

Last year, instead of blue, the Empire State Building was lit yellow and white to celebrate the reopening of a museum in New York, despite four months of lobbying from PCF.

Yet we honor breast cancer awareness by lighting up landmarks or significant structures across the country in pink.

What will it take? A few blue bulbs for a few nights and some media attention can change lives, create awareness and send a message that a lot of people care and a lot more should care about prostate cancer.

Here’s an idea: maybe we can get all the schools across the world to buy 1 blue bulb and put it in one window across the country for one night as a way of saying to dad or other men in their lives, “What is prostate cancer?” and “Do you need to do something about it, huh, dad?”.