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PSA Screening Not Recommended: NY Daily News Still Doesn’t Care

Headlines every day in the New York Daily News are luring men in as part of a mass prostate cancer screening campaign that the American Cancer Society not only does not endorse, but its chief medical officer recommends against. Yet the paper brags that it’s beginning its second decade of this non-evidence-based campaign. Sample headlines:

• Doctors urge New York men to take advantage of free, city-wide PSA testing

• What you don’t know can kill you. Get a FREE prostate cancer test. It can save your life

• Bring dad in for FREE prostate cancer test across the city on Father’s Day

and

• Don’t skip the PSA test! My prostate cancer is treatable because simple test caught it early (written by a Daily News staffer). Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Mammography And Jack Black’s “Boob Saver 5K”

This video has been available for months, but I just saw it for the first time. I suspect many women would get a chuckle from seeing the always buffed, ripped, and jacked comedian Jack Black partially disrobe to put his breast in a mammography machine — or as he calls it, the “Boob Saver 5K.”

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Life Line Screening Promotes Unnecessary Medical Tests

A patient brought in a flyer for Life Line Screening, where for $129 an individual can have their carotid (neck) and peripheral (leg) arteries screened for blockage, their abdominal aorta screened for aneurysm (swelling), and be tested for osteoporosis. The advertisement claims that “we can help you avoid a stroke,” and their logo notes “Life Line Screening: The Power of Prevention.”

Are these tests worth your money? Short answer: No.

Although the flyer correctly indicates that 80 percent of stokes can be prevented, the National Stroke Assocation does not recommend ultrasound as a screening test. Preventing stroke includes quitting smoking, knowing your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers, drinking alcohol in moderation (if already doing so), exercising regularly, and eating a low-sodium diet. Their is no mention of an ultrasound test. Why? Because there is NO evidence that it helps save lives in individuals who are healthy and have no symptoms (except for the following situations). Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*

Have Mammograms Delivered Their Promised Effect?

A well-done analysis in the BMJ this week calls into question previous research that has been used to tout mammography as an effective tool for lowering breast cancer mortality in Denmark.  That previous study compared breast cancer death rates in Copenhagen, where women were offered screening mammography in 1991, to areas in Denmark where mammograms were not offered until 17 years later, and concluded that the introduction of mammogram screening resulted in a 25 % reduction in breast cancer mortality in screened areas.

The new study adds an additional county where screening was offered (with a little implication that perhaps the previous researchers should have included this other area, but I’ll stay out of the academic finger pointing) and then reanalyzes the data. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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