Money talks. In fact, it often shouts.
And medicine alas, is often not an exception so that some
things that are done in this business are done, well, more for a monetary gain
than for the best interests of patients.
And as uncomfortable as that thought may be, it’s really
very hard to come up with any other kind of explanation for a recent study
published in JAMA that found that
among American urologists, “advanced-treatment technologies for prostate cancer
. . . has increased among men with low-risk disease (and) high risk of
non-cancer mortality”.
In plain English, that means that there’s been a huge rise
in expensive new technology diagnostic techniques and (way more important)
surgical interventions for men who are very unlikely to be adversely affected
by prostate cancer.
In other words, American urologists are doing lots of
surgery to treat and lots of investigation to find prostate cancer in men who
are very unlikely to die from prostate cancer, such as old, sick guys, who are
much more likely to die of something else even if they end up with prostate
cancer.
This is much less likely to be a problem in Canada, but
still, we are increasingly doing things in this business outside of Medicare,
so it’s always a good idea – when possible - to get 2nd and even 3rd
opinions about interventions that may not be necessary, especially, I suppose,
if they’re also costly.
