Prostate Biopsies Can Result in Dangerous Infections

    Barton Chiropractic in Concord is constantly reviewing the latest healthcare research so that     we can provide you with the best possible health care. Recently I ran across this article so I thought I would share it.

The prostate-specific antigen test (PSA test), analyzes your blood for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a substance produced by your prostate gland.  When higher-than-normal levels of PSA are detected, it is believed that cancer is present.

 PSA test has been criticized as useless

 PSA test has been criticized as useless for a number of years now. For example, back in     2004, Stanford University News reported: 

"The most commonly used screening tool for detecting prostate cancer – the PSA test – is virtually worthless for predicting men's risk of contracting the disease, medical school researchers have determined. Stanford scientists studied prostate tissues collected in the 20 years since a high PSA test result became the standard for prostate removal. They concluded that as a screen, the test indicates nothing more than the size of the prostate gland."

 Today, many experts agree that PSA testing is unreliable at best and useless at worst for accurately diagnosing prostate cancer. Many also agree that routine PSA blood tests often lead to over-diagnosis of prostate cancer, resulting in unnecessary treatments. Similar to mammograms, the PSA screen has become little more than an up-sell technique. The false positive rate is high, and the bulk of the harm is a result of subsequent unnecessary treatments.

According to the American Cancer Society:

 "There can be different reasons for an elevated PSA level, including prostate cancer, benign prostate enlargement, inflammation, infection, age, and race," all factors that make PSA test results confusing, leading to potential for unnecessary treatment and suffering when tests are elevated.  Getting a PSA test reduces your lifetime risk of dying from prostate cancer from three percent to just 2.4 percent, so the difference is negligible.

Prostate Biopsies Can Result in Dangerous Infections

A positive PSA test will typically lead to a biopsy—which has also come under increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent years. On the one hand, the procedure itself may cause acute or long-term harm, and on the other, the rate of false negatives is high.

There are over one million prostate cancer tissue biopsy procedures performed annually in the U.S. Approximately 25 percent of these tissue biopsies are reported "positive," indicating the presence of prostate cancer. The remaining 75 percent are reported "negative." One-third of the men with initial "negative" results for prostate cancer actually do have prostate cancer that was missed by the biopsy.

A prostate biopsy involves inserting fine needles into the prostate gland. But specialists have begun to worry about a recent, significant increase in the risk of complications from the procedure. In particular, they are concerned about hard-to-treat bloodstream infections that can require weeks of treatment. Over the past decade, the rate of hospital admissions in Ontario, Canada, for serious infections caused by prostate biopsy increased four-fold.

Prostate biopsies inherently pose a risk for infection because:

• The needles that collect a tiny piece of prostate tissue can transport bacteria through your rectal wall into the prostate and bloodstream, and/or
• The needles can spread harmful bacteria present in your gut into your bloodstream

   Chiropractors

Chiropractors have always maintained that surgery should be a last resort. This is another case of drugs and surgery taking the place of a healthy lifestyle. Drugs and surgery are an industry.

There is way more money to be made on our laziness than prevention. For more information, click: Concord Chiropractic . Or call 925 685-2002 to schedule a free consultation to see how Chiropractic can help you take charge of your health.