Re: Medical Research-Evidence

In article <KlZeg.9501$No1.5144@attbi_s71>, Skeptic <bcs002b@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"George Conklin" <georgeconklin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7RXeg.9523$y4.5387@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Skeptic" <bcs002b@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:neJeg.8600$1i1.1583@xxxxxxxxxxxx

"George Conklin" <georgeconklin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:k4Eeg.6437$921.356@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Here is a comment from UK:

..................

Actually they divided the human male population into two groups: those
cancers described as aggressive (undefined) and not aggressive (also
undefined). However, the 1% risk group was for the non-aggressive tumors
over a 15-year period. You snipped that. It is a scandal with billions
being spent on treatments so little has been spent on evaluation. The big
money is in treatments.

So George, what do you think should be done about prostate cancer? If a 55
year old, otherwise healthy man, is diagnosed with Gleason 4+3 prostate
cancer (intermediate risk) after a screening PSA of 5.6 (elevated for his
age) the data and medical knowledge suggest that he stands an improved
chance of survival with surgery (and proabably also with radiation therapy).
Should he not be offered these? What do you think should be done? I know
that if that were me at that age and health, today, I'd go under the knife
for a radical prostatectomy. Does that mean I'm foolish? What would you
do?

You and the other physicians should really look over the
information, come up with the best guesses of the
probabilities of the various results for each type of
treatment, and let the patient make the decision.
Physicians have NOT done their job in evaluating the
information, leaving it to cookbook statisticians to
provide meaningless summaries (p-values with little else).

Some years ago, there was a "60 Minutes" program in which
someone with prostate cancer hired a medical reporter to
look up the literature for this purpose and provide the
information.

A spokesman for the AMA stated that the medical reporter
should be charged with practicing medicine without a
license, especially as one of the treatments was not
currently approved by the FDA. On the contrary, the
full information should be presented to the patient,
and the FDA should not have the right to approve or
disapprove in cases like this.



--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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