Or, as happened with my wife, you show no symptoms but the test proved positive. She had surgery to remove around 2/3rd of the bowel followed by chemo.
She is still on annual checkups at the hospital but is doing fine. Without the test she would not have been here.
That experience has persuaded many friends and associates to also fo the test and return the kit. One of them was also identified as positive but the surgery was far less and no chemo needed.
My mother's death certificate cited cancer among other issues - but that had been there for at least a decade and, quite possibly, much longer.
When she saw an oncologist, he was extremely reluctant to consider any treatment as the risks of treatement greatly exceeded any likely benefit. His opinion was she would die long before it became a major issue. And she did. (Prime cause of death was not the cancer but other issues.)
Knowing allows treatement - if it is both appropriate and available. It also allows for things like dietary modification, if that is seen to be helpful.
Knowing when there is unlikely to be any appropriate and available treatment, and there is nothing else tyo be done, has few benefits. Which is why I am still unsure whether or not to go for testing.
Or as happened with my friend. He simply died with no symptoms until it was way too late. No test would have picked it up.
Home testing doesn't cost/risk anything. If they find something and want you in for colonoscopy etc. the choice is still yours. Get it done!
My mother hid her stomach issue for years although the bottle of Kaolin and Morph. might has warned us. By the time she was admitted, her bowel cancer had spread to her lungs and was deemed inoperable.
>
My last one found something, so they sent another. That seemed clear. No symptoms whatsoever. I'm being treated for bladder cancer, and they've done lots of scans of all types - but not suggested I should have a colonoscopy too.
I'd say that the head in the sand approach. If you prove positive, you still have the choice of whether to have treatment or not. And with most cancers, the sooner they are found the more chance of successful treatment.
+1
Same with my stepdaughter (39). The first obvious signs looked more like a hernia but was in fact her kidney, already much larger than it was supposed to be with (by then) other secondary cancer in her lungs (primary in her bowel).
1:3 chance chemotherapy would kill her and if it didn't what life she had left (that turned out to be less than a couple of months) would have been crap.Sister resisted having a mammogram for a few years and when she did, they found something (still going though therapy).
Take / do all the tests you can.
Cheers, T i m
Better than a false negative which is always a possibility when a human is involved. The next test would be two years down the line by which time it could be much more difficult to treat.
I read a worldwide FB group about bladder cancer, and like all such English speaking groups dominated by the US. And from that, it's obvious those who ignore early symptoms or have them incorrectly diagnosed end up needing much more radical treatment.
Of course in a land where many don't have insurance - or a less than comprehensive one - you may well be more likely to wait until the last minute. Purely because of costs.
I dunno if I was just lucky, but my GP arranged for me to see a specialist after I first had symptoms (small amount of blood in the pee) And I was seen within a few days. With all the tests which confirmed it done there and then - ultrasound, CT and cystoscope. As well as blood and urine tests.
Um, no.
Assessing the risks and benefits of screening is much more complicated than most people realise. False positives can lead to unnecessary investigations, a huge amount of anxiety and deaths have resulted from invasive procedures like colonoscopy. Most advocates of mass screening either don?t know about or downplay these negatives.
Tim
In the one area of disease I really do have experience of, the tests have so many problems it can be a nightmare. Combine scientific issues (where tests simply are wrong for various reasons), lack of understanding among doctors (even some of those regarded as specialists), treatment issues, and many other things, I have a somewhat jaundiced view of the ability of our medical system to deliver what it seems to promise. (That is the medical system of the UK but also every other country I am aware of.)
Every time a celeb advocates ?getting tested? for ?X? disease, doctors eyes roll in despair. The medical system isn?t solely responsible for folks unreasonable expectations or inability to deliver what people think they want.
Tim
it's the current equivalent of the Readers' Digest "disease of the month".
Thanks
Um yes.
Ok, (for the literal thinkers), 'after assessing the known risks and benefits, get the relevant tests done'.
I would suggest far fewer and potentially less suffering than no (and especially risk-targeted) screening at all?
Probably because 'on balance', they save more lives than they lose?
Cheers, T i m
It is meaningless to lump all possible screening together. The ones we actually use probably on balance save lives because they have been carefully assessed to do this (although this is debated in some cases). But there are many other proposed screening tests that haven't been adopted nationally, precisely because they may well lose (or severly damage) more lives than they save.
Much more often because they don?t save enough lives to be cost effective. That money is better spent in other areas of the NHS where it saves more lives or delivers better health or quality of life even if it doesn?t actually save lives.
The Biobank project, which started about 10 years ago to record some basic health parameters of a significant cohort of people of a certain age, has more recently started more sophisticated routine scanning, and I was done early last year.
These are not intended to be diagnostic scans but as they say
" ...if the radiographer does happen to notice a potentially serious abnormality while taking the scans, they will refer the scans after your visit to a specialist doctor (radiologist) for review. If the radiologist agrees that the abnormality is potentially serious we will write to you and your GP to tell you."
A couple of months later, the surgery rang to say that, following the scans, I needed to speak to a doctor "within 7 days". You can imagine the possible scenarios that were going through my head until I could have that conversation.
They had notified my GP that I needed further investigation for bone density. They also spotted a couple of healed fractures of vertebral processes (the sticky-out bits). (1)
I was relieved, but more than a little concerned that they gave me the news in such a vague manner, leaving me worrying for several days. Only later did I get a letter from Biobank which would have been far less alarming had it arrived first.
I have had another DEXA scan and some blood tests, and been warned to make sure my dental work is up to date.
Finally I got the verdict last month. A very pleasant consultant took me through the state of affairs. Seems that there is some evidence of osteoporosis, but the treatment will initially be a drug by infusion at 12-18 month intervals, which is a lot easier to handle than some of the other options.
Keep active, but no rock climbing or deep diving. I reckon I can live with that. ;-)
(1) The injury happened just before Christmas 2018. There is an area in Loughborough that has been pedestrianised, road and pavement all given the same block paving, and level apart from where the bus stop had been, where the raised kerb remained. I didn't notice, stepped off and toppled, landing with my back against the kerb.
I guess I wasn't the only casualty, as they have now installed a row of shiny bollards.
I was in some pain when moving, for a few days, then just a little uncomfortable, but thought it was just bruising - apparently not, though the treatment, if diagnosed, would not have been to do anything.
Chris
Of course?
Ok.
Then there is no point in doing them is there (and you wouldn't if your research didn't come up with sufficient positive hits)?
It was like my macular issue. The specialist said that if it didn't sort itself out (it was the 'wet' type or something and luckily it did) I could have laser surgery but the scarring from the laser would probably be as bad for my vision as the issue, so of course I didn't have it done.
Cheers, T i m
Not so. Name an example.
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