Free prostate and testicular screening... why is there none?

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

We have a wonderful free breast and cervical screening provided by the state, there might have been some detrimental errors made, but the screening exists nonetheless and they are a wonderful service.

However, why is there none for male specific cancers such as prostate and testicular?

You might argue that men can do a self exam in the shower, but by the time lumps are apparent it is often progressed and more serious. By that logic, women can do a breast exam in the shower too. Furthermore, vasectomised men often have small lumps called sperm granulomas which further strengthens the argument for national testicular screening so men aren't ignoring more sinister lumps thinking they're just granulomas.

Prostate cancers are very curable if caught early but needs a professional medical exam and intervention before any symptoms such as pain or bladder issues arise.

For the inevitable argument "just go to your GP". A GP consultation is €60 and an ultrasound is €120... So men have to fork out €180 for an equivalent procedure that women get free.
Free screening will save lives.

Why is there no free prostate and testicular screening?

DUDE - dont steal my grindr profile!

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

[Deleted User] wrote: »

DUDE - dont steal my grindr profile!

Would you mock a thread about women's cancer issues? I doubt it.
If a man mocked a thread about women's cancer he'd be banned. Welcome to 2020.

gmisk

I don't disagree especially with regards prostate cancer it is pretty common above a certain age

Better Than Christ

Because there's no demand for it.

There should be, but men often tend to avoid getting that kind of thing checked out, especially if the test is... a bit on the invasive side.

Mattdhg

Completely agree.

To be honest it baffles me seeing so many lads raising money for breast cancer with the 5k runs etc etc, I know they often think of their mothers and sisters who may get it but there's much less support for male specific cancers. I think the death rates are reflective of that too with a lesser proportion surviving prostate than breast cancer due to it being caught late

Edit - According to a very shallow Google search 1 in 8 Irish men will get prostate cancer and 1 in 9 women will get breast cancer. It says prostate is one of the most curable kinds, but anecdotally I know a lot of men my fathers age who only were diagnosed when it was at an advanced stage.

deandean

I think the main reason is that women are better organised that they make a lot more noise about what they want..

mikhail

gmisk wrote: »

I don't disagree especially with regards prostate cancer it is pretty common above a certain age

I'm reading Bill Bryson's The Body: A Guide for Occupants at the moment. I am on the chapter on cancer. He quotes stats that something like 50% of men who die in their 60s are found to have prostate cancer. The figure rises to 75% for men in their 70s. Bryson repeats something I've read elsewhere: that it's speculated that if nothing else kills us, our prostates eventually will.

I have no idea how useful a mass screening programme would be. Indeed, I think there has been some criticism of mass screening for breast cancer as it has resulted in a heap of unnecessary mastectomies: if you're looking for needles in a haystack, you don't need to misidentify hay very often to find a few false needles. I haven't followed that discussion, so I don't know if the argument has been firmly rebutted, but I assume there's some difficult to assess cost-benefit analysis at the heart of it that doesn't lend itself to easy answers.

s1ippy

If anything the argument above that there's no demand for it should make it am absolutely essential free screening for everyone over a certain age. There should be awareness campaigns as well with celebrities like George Hook and Ivan Yates.

Nah actually that would put people off. Michael Fassbender and Daniel Day Lewis.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Would you mock a thread about women's cancer issues? I doubt it.

If you took a moment to look into my posting history then you would already know the answer to this.

Which is "yes" I would mock any topic you bring up in After Hours with a joke before anything else. And then I will take it as seriously as anyone else

It is what after hours is _for_ according to the charter.

As a case in point -

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

If a man mocked a thread about women's cancer he'd be banned. Welcome to 2020.

Meh - itd consider the topic on the right - and the topic on the left - and make my decisions on which one felt harder.

LuasSimon

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Mattdhg

LuasSimon wrote: »

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Look at the last government, look at the new one they're trying to form. There won't be a whole lot of travelers, females, gays, transgender or black people in the mix.

Better Than Christ

LuasSimon wrote: »

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Yes, that's definitely it. Straight men are the biggest victims of discrimination. It's definitely got nothing to do with the fact that we tend to be a bit squeamish about the idea of a stranger prodding around with our balls and arseholes.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Better Than Christ wrote: »

Because there's no demand for it.

There should be, but men often tend to avoid getting that kind of thing checked out, especially if the test is... a bit on the invasive side.

All the more reason to make it available.
And campaigns etc.

Why do companies go pink for breast cancer and never blue for male cancers?

The cervical screening is just as invasive as the prostate one, if not more.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Mattdhg wrote: »

Look at the last government, look at the new one they're trying to form. There won't be a whole lot of travelers, females, gays, transgender or black people in the mix.

Women make up 50ish% of the population.

No one stopped women from running for office or voting for other women.

Stop restoring to whataboutery

Bogfairy

Look what happened with cervical screening. They'd make a balls of it ...

fleet_admiral

Because men don't matter. Look at the suicide rate, the homelessness rate. Men make up the vast vast majority.
If women were over 80%, of the suicide rate there would be war and massive government intervention

Mattdhg

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Women make up 50ish% of the population.

No one stopped women from running for office or voting for other women.

Stop restoring to whataboutery

Its easy take my post out of context and turn it into something else. It was related to the other poster whining about minority groups having it all

Necro

Mod:

Folks AH is for light hearted topics which this... most certainly is not. I'm going to move the thread to Current Affairs. Please read the charter there before posting.

reklamos

Better Than Christ wrote: »

Yes, that's definitely it. Straight men are the biggest victims of discrimination. It's definitely got nothing to do with the fact that we tend to be a bit squeamish about the idea of a stranger prodding around with our balls and arseholes.

The thing is, PSA(Prostate-specific antigen) is a blood test, so anyone can do it, just ask your GP.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

reklamos wrote: »

The thing is, PSA(Prostate-specific antigen) is a blood test, so anyone can do it, just ask your GP.

Again, we have to pay when women get their equivalents for free

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Bogfairy wrote: »

Look what happened with cervical screening. They'd make a balls of it ...

The false negatives were a tiny percentage of tests.

Besides, it's nothing compared to the number of men who die who never got tested at all.

El_Duderino 09

Men's health is a topic that more men will get excited about to have a little whinge about, but will also oppose campaigns to raise awareness of them and the need for more services for men's issues.

Take International Men's Day in November as an example. Loads of men actually oppose the day and ridicule it and the reasons for it.

Ultimately the answer is that nothing happens just because it's a good idea. There are more good ideas than there is money to fund them. Things happen when people campaign for them. In the absence of campaigning for men's health services, they're much less likely to happen.

boombang

Prostate cancer is common in older men, but most are slow burners that are unlikely to kill you. It's often described as the cancer you die with, not of. Basic screening procedures are estimated by many researchers to do more harm than good due to the damaging operations given to men with screen detected cancers that would turn out to be slow burners. The consequences of operations include erectile dysfunctional and urinary incontinence. For this reason most health scientists in Europe don't recommend screening for men.

Some men have more aggressive prostate cancers. Generic risk profiling promises ways of tragetting screening to men who will benefit from it. That's coming soon.

There is loads of prostate screening that happens in Ireland and the US, largely because of a incentives in private medicine in which the doctor puts their financial interests ahead of the patient.

I don't know about testicular cancer. I suspect it's too rare to be worth screening for. Men should keep an eye on their balls to check for changes.

As a man, probably the most important thing you can do re screening is to take your bowelscreen test. This is really worthwhile, especially for men, but less than 40% take the free test (ages 60-69).

gmisk

LuasSimon wrote: »

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Huh?
Look at your TDS.... predominantly white and male...

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

boombang wrote: »

Men should keep an eye on their balls to check for changes.

Did you bother to read the OP and the thread?

I said by the time lumps are apparent it's often too late.

There are almost the same incidences of testicular cancer as breast cancer.

Rodin

Breast Cancer has been unsuccessful anyway.
It really should be scrapped. Too many women having unnecessary treatments.

johnnyskeleton

You can check for signs of testicular cancer yourself, and prostate cancer is low risk for younger people. Older people tend to get prostate checks from their GP if they want it.

Compared with cervical and brest cancer requiring special equipment to check and affecting younger people.

So in reality the only people discriminated against are those too lazy to check their own testicles

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

You can check for signs of testicular cancer yourself, and prostate cancer is low risk for younger people. Older people tend to get prostate checks from their GP if they want it.

Compared with cervical and brest cancer requiring special equipment to check and affecting younger people.

So in reality the only people discriminated against are those too lazy to check their own testicles

Read the OP?

By the time lumps appear it's too late.

US scans detect precancerous cells.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

gmisk wrote: »

Huh?
Look at your TDS.... predominantly white and male...

And who voted for them?

Mattdhg

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Did you bother to read the OP and the thread?

I said by the time lumps are apparent it's often too late.

There are almost the same incidences of testicular cancer as breast cancer.

I'd believe it, I'm my late teens I found a testicular lump and went to the Gp who didn't even bother to examine me, just sent me for an ultrasound. The guy doing the ultrasound was able to tell me it was a harmless lump due to excess calcification of duct tissue, I think.

Its not very encouraging. They both gave me minimal information, and the lump never went ~5 years on meaning I'm always on edge that it might mask a real tumour.

To be fair to the colleges, they often have a free check service on campus which is a great facility

lozenges

Prostate specific antigen is notoriously unreliable and not sufficiently accurate to be recommended as a screening tool. If a more accurate tool could be developed it would be worth screening for sure, as prostate cancer is pretty common.

Testicular cancer is much less common than the commonest cancers in Ireland which are lung, breast, colorectal and prostate. And an US cannot pick up precancerous cells. So the cost effectiveness of a testicular screening programme would be poor.

It is not correct that by the time a testicular lump is palpable it is too late. It depends on the type of cancer. Some are extremely responsive to treatment and others much less so.

Lyan

Why would anyone want to stick their finger up your stinky butthole for free?

Kidchameleon

Society worships women whilst men are deemed disposable & I say that as a woman.

El_Duderino 09

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Society worships women whilst men are deemed disposable & I say that as a woman.

Ah, you're claiming to be a woman for this post.

Just for context, this poster claims to be a man or woman in different threads

El_Duderino 09

Women have a powerfully lobbying movement which pushes women's issues to the fore. Whether you like them or not and whether they are right or wrong, feminism makes sure women's issues, like health screenings, have popular support and are addressed.

Anita Blow

Has been said above but may as well repeat it- based on what we know about the natural history of these diseases and the investigations available for them there is no justification for screening programmes in prostate/testicular cancer. Specifically:

1) Some prostate cancers can be rapidly progressive, but the vast majority are indolent cancers (you die with it rather than of it). We have no way of differentiating who will have the less common aggressive course, so to screen would lead to over-investigation and treatment of the vast majority of prostate cancers which would otherwise have never affected the person's quality of life or life expectancy. As much as 1 in 10 men who undergo prostatectomy will experience long-term urinary/faecal incontinence or sexual disturbance and a smaller number will experience significant damage to other structures.

2) PSA is not a reliable marker for prostate Ca. It's not specific for prostate Ca as it can be raised in other conditions, and 20-40% of local prostate Cas will have a normal PSA. It's essentially useless unless you're interpreting the result in the context of reasonable clinical suspicion of prostate Ca. A positive result would have to be followed-up despite not likely reflecting actual cancer, leading to needle biopsy which itself carries risk of sepsis in 1% cases.

3) Testicular Cancer fails the first test of any screening programme- it doesn't occur in sufficient numbers to justify mass screening. Additionally, most occur in young males and even if advanced usually responds excellently to treatment. US is not capable of identifying pre-cancerous cells. Only a biopsy can do that.

mc25

Did anyone bother to do even the slightest bit of research before jumping in with the replies?

There have been numerous studies, some specifically on the Irish population about screening for prostate cancer. And as others have said, the screening that does exist is not the best.

As for the problem of companies not going blue for male specific cancers, yes that is an issue, although I thought Movember was a thing now?

There are also plenty of issues surrounding the whole "pinkification" of breast cancer which we should be talking about too.

Also may be worth mentioning that men can get breast cancer (though very rare) whereas women will never get prostrate/testicular cancer.

Galwayguy35

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

You can check for signs of testicular cancer yourself, and prostate cancer is low risk for younger people. Older people tend to get prostate checks from their GP if they want it.

Compared with cervical and brest cancer requiring special equipment to check and affecting younger people.

So in reality the only people discriminated against are those too lazy to check their own testicles

Wow thats a very dismissive post about something that could affect us all, I'm guessing you are male going by your username.


Making this a free service would be pocket change in the grand scheme of things and considering the crap the Government spends our money on like sending millions over to tin pot countries it could be spent on this instead.

Wesser

There is no evidence that prostate screening by using PSA reduces the risk of dying from prostate cancer.

Ie.

If you have 1000 men who have regular psa testing and 1000 men who do not the chances of dying from prostate cancer is the same in both groups.

Check out wilsons criteria for a screening test.

Better Than Christ

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

All the more reason to make it available.
And campaigns etc.

Why do companies go pink for breast cancer and never blue for male cancers?

The cervical screening is just as invasive as the prostate one, if not more.

If men want these things, we need to fight for them. Just like women had to. No use moaning about it online and pretending to be the most oppressed people ever.

As for publicity campaigns, they tend to die a death because most men aren't interested. Did you ever grow a moustache for Movember? Me neither.

spurious

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Again, we have to pay when women get their equivalents for free

So start a campaign and demand it for free.

Better Than Christ

spurious wrote: »

So start a campaign and demand it for free.

Much easier to whinge about it and pretend to be a victim of discrimination.

lozenges

As I think has been mentioned upthread, colorectal cancer disproportionately affects males and is the third commonest cancer in Ireland. It is the second commonest cause of cancer related death (lung is the first)

There is a screening programme available with a reasonably accurate test but uptake is very poor, and worse in males than females.

Participate in Bowel screen if you're eligible!

mc25

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Making this a free service would be pocket change in the grand scheme of things and considering the crap the Government spends our money on like sending millions over to tin pot countries it could be spent on this instead.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5773135/

"Conclusion
The cost-effectiveness of prostate cancer screening is unclear. There was no consensus on the optimal model type or approach to model prostate cancer progression. Due to limited data availability, individual patient-level modelling is unlikely to increase the accuracy of cost-effectiveness results compared with cohort-level modelling, but is more suitable when assessing adaptive screening strategies. Modelling prostate cancer is challenging and the justification for the data used and the approach to modelling natural disease progression was lacking. Country-specific data are required and recommended methods used to incorporate quality of life. Influence of data inputs on cost-effectiveness results need to be comprehensively assessed and the model structure and assumptions verified by clinical experts."

Picture is still very unclear it seems

Sarcozies

Better Than Christ wrote: »

If men want these things, we need to fight for them. Just like women had to. No use moaning about it online and pretending to be the most oppressed people ever.

As for publicity campaigns, they tend to die a death because most men aren't interested. Did you ever grow a moustache for Movember? Me neither.

I find this reasoning so weird. Testicular cancer? People with balls need to fight for it. Prostate cancer funding? People with prostates need to fight for it.

Do ye all not have any father's, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, boyfriends, husbands? If you do, fight for them even if what is between your legs doesn't match the cause you are fighting for.

Not to mention all the men who have fought for women's right. Again, so weird.

Balmed Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

There are almost the same incidences of testicular cancer as breast cancer.

In men?
1 in 250 men get testicular cancer one in 12 women get breast cancer.

El_Duderino 09

Sarcozies wrote: »

I find this reasoning so weird. Testicular cancer? People with balls need to fight for it. Prostate cancer funding? People with prostates need to fight for it.

Do ye all not have any father's, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, boyfriends, husbands? If you do, fight for them even if what is between your legs doesn't match the cause you are fighting for.

Not to mention all the men who have fought for women's right. Again, so weird.

That's where awareness comes in. People only campaign for things when they know about them. Gaining popular support is very important and the way to achieve that is to push the issue to the fore of public consciousness.

Pushing these things on the Internet is one useful approach. But just whinging on the Internet is useless. Case in point, 'International Men's Day' gets more hits on international women's day when men whinge and ask why there's no men's equivalent. But on men's day, the same men are more likely to ridicule it than support it, let alone take part in it.

Sarcozies

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That's where awareness comes in. People only campaign for things when they know about them. Gaining popular support is very important and the way to achieve that is to push the issue to the fore of public consciousness.

Pushing these things on the Internet is one useful approach. But just whinging on the Internet is useless. Case in point, 'International Men's Day' gets more hits on international women's day when men whinge and ask why there's no men's equivalent. But on men's day, the same men are more likely to ridicule it than support it, let alone take part in it.

I don't know if you quoted me incorrectly or not but you this has nothing to do with what I said.

I find it bizarre that people are saying people with x genitals need to fight for it, as if that's the biggest factor. We're talking about a cancer screening here for our dads, granddads, brothers. The lack of compassion is weird.

If someone came to me saying we need a woman's cancer screening, the first thing out of my mouth wouldn't be "well, people with vaginas need to fight for it"

notobtuse

USA here. I had prostate cancer, currently am in remission. Got it around 50. I’ve found they only test for it here when guys go to the doctor as there are telltale issues even in the early onset (and guys WILL go to the doctor for those issues) and usually there's plenty of time to tackle the cancer effectively.

Galwayguy35

mc25 wrote: »

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5773135/

"Conclusion
The cost-effectiveness of prostate cancer screening is unclear. There was no consensus on the optimal model type or approach to model prostate cancer progression. Due to limited data availability, individual patient-level modelling is unlikely to increase the accuracy of cost-effectiveness results compared with cohort-level modelling, but is more suitable when assessing adaptive screening strategies. Modelling prostate cancer is challenging and the justification for the data used and the approach to modelling natural disease progression was lacking. Country-specific data are required and recommended methods used to incorporate quality of life. Influence of data inputs on cost-effectiveness results need to be comprehensively assessed and the model structure and assumptions verified by clinical experts."

Picture is still very unclear it seems

It shouldn't be down to cost effectiveness when its a health issue, like i said earlier the government are very quick to waste money on things that are lot less important.