Reader comments
Prostate-cancer testing not advised for older men

I am 72 and have yearly PSA tests. I think the information coming out was published by Kaplan (U of CA at Santa Cruz) years ago. What is not said by the latest news release is a quickly rising PSA can be a good indicator and the patient and the doctor can decide what to do. The article as written says 56% to 71% of the men will die more quickly if the test is ignored since 29% to 44% will not get a life limiting cancer. The assumption is an average life span of 85 or 86 years which is statistically correct but ignores the human variation. I see this as a Medicare and private insurance project to limit health care and/or start down the path of "let them die" as we have with some foreign national health care systems. The article is correct on absolute PSA numbers and ignores trends and ignores robotic operations and newer developments for eliminating cancer when found. Impotence is not a necessary result.