Routine prostate tests not appropriate: academic
Thursday, 13 February 2003
A University of 亚洲色吧 cancer specialist has defended comments made in today's Australian Financial Review by Cancer Council of Australia CEO Professor Alan Coates, who said he would not be tested for prostate cancer because there was no proof testing saves people's lives.
Professor Ian Olver, who is the Cancer Council Professor of Cancer Care in the University's Faculty of Health Sciences, says prostate cancer testing is not yet advanced enough to predict what problems detected cancers would cause.
"More people die with prostate cancer rather than of prostate cancer - they often die of something else, because prostate cancer is a disease which can be in the background for many years," he says.
"At this stage with routine screening we just can't tell with many prostate cancers which ones will cause problems and which ones won't. The treatment for prostate cancer is quite severe and causes major si