Posted on 08/18/2014 6:42:51 PM PDT by Innovative
Screening older patients for cancer provided minimal benefit at considerable cost and increased use of invasive procedures, reported investigators in two separate studies.
"It is particularly important to question screening strategies for older persons," Gross continued. "Patients with a shorter life expectancy have less time to develop clinically significant cancers after a screening test and are more likely to die from noncancer health problems after a cancer diagnosis."
(Excerpt) Read more at medpagetoday.com ...
Link to the NY Times article on Ted Kennedy’s cancer treatment: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/health/28brain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
In a couple of years Obamacare won’t pay for treatment anyway, because the death panels will prohibit it.
Just checked and there are a LOT of articles on that — they are all trying to “educate” people to not get tested.
I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, I am quite suspicious that doctors are privately being told to NOT test or prescribe medications for “older” or “undeserving” people. Pay attention, you might notice this trend as well.
They’ll probably pay for an injection to put sick people out of their misery quickly — and save $$$.
“At least we don’t hear about “useless eaters”, yet.”
Well, not in those exact words, but this is exactly the meaning of such guidelines.
“At least we don’t hear about “useless eaters”, yet.”
Well, not in those exact words, but this is exactly the meaning of such guidelines.
I suspect that disincentives are built into ACA insurance guidelines. A younger person will pay less for diagnostics than an older one. I’ll ask around, but I’ve found that libs are very reluctant to disclose details of their health costs, lol!
You just want her to croak so you can have her money!
The study looked at frequency of screening over different patient ages and what the cost-benefit would be of shorter or longer screening intervals for different age patients. Most people here would agree that scheduling ordinary people for a colonoscopy or pap smear every 30 days would be excessive at age 50 or 70. Why? because the dollar costs would be high, the chance of an infection or perforation for a given patient say after a year or 12 colonoscopies would be quite high, and the screening benefit compared to say a three year scheduling interval would be modest.
One of the things the study looked at was 3 year vs. 5 year vs. no screening at all.
As compared with no screening, guideline-based screening colonoscopy prevented 14 cases of colorectal cancer and 7.7 cancer-specific deaths, and resulted in 63.1 life years gained per 1,000 beneficiaries screened. In contrast, a 5-year screening interval led to prevention of an additional 1.7 cases of colorectal cancer and 0.6 cancer deaths and a gain of 5.8 life years per 1,000 beneficiaries screened."To achieve this relatively small added benefit, 783 additional colonoscopies had to be performed, causing 1.3 additional complications," the authors noted.
Reducing the screening interval to 3 years and increasing the duration of screening to age 85 prevented fewer cancers and cancer deaths and further reduced the life years gained per 1,000 patients screened, they added.
I don't see the satanic intent here, just realistic analysis. Also didn't see where anyone is advocating that people be prevented from paying for more frequent screenings if they care to.
Personally, I get none.
You need to get up to speed. Any physician who provides screening that is not mandated will be first fined and then charged with breaking the law.
bookmark
“Any physician who provides screening that is not mandated will be first fined and then charged with breaking the law.”
Exactly — I think it’s already going on and it will only get worse.
Actually, the longer she lives the larger her estate will probably be due to gov pensions. Neither here nor there to me though -- I haven't been in a spending mood for about 35 years and am not likely to ever get back into that habit.
Haven’t you heard that “there are liars, d&*n liars, and statisticians” — i.e. you can prove anything with statistics.
And you might view things differently if you were one of the ones whose cancer is discovered too late, when it would have been curable, had it been diagnosed early.
“Any physician who provides screening that is not mandated will be first fined and then charged with breaking the law.”
One “little problem” with this is that they can’t tell whether it’s slow of fast growing until it’s too late.
CANCER WARRIORS PING
This is a ping list for cancer survivors and caregivers to share information. If you would like your name added to or removed from this ping list, please tell us in the comments section at this link (click here). (For the most updated list of names, click on the same link and go to the last comment.)
LOL No, you do. I'm not generally referring to primary care providers anyway. There are commercial operations around here that provide all manner of screenings for cash or credit. These private operations are in no way affected by ACA or other health insurance-related legislation (assuming you didn't just make that up -- I'm not so sure).
At 93, you probably don’t want to do a colonoscopy.
But for those younger who hate the notion of colonoscopy, I read there is a highly accurate stool test for colon cancer.
FDA approves more reliable at-home screening test for colon cancer
“Cologuard detected 92 percent of colorectal cancers and 42 percent of advanced adenomas, according to the FDA,”
Sorry — I don’t know how I messed up, my post 36 was not meant for you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.