Prostate cancer detection-To MRI or Not to MRI…that is the question?

If you had clinically insignificant prostate cancer…would you want to know it?

If you knew it do you know exactly what that means?

Or do you think the doctor or radiologist telling you that can promise you that it won’t actually become, or already is, clinically significant?

Would you want a biopsy to “prove with tissue” the exact Gleason’s grade of this insignificant cancer?

Have you ever compared the cost of a standard prostate biopsy to the cost of a prostate MRI and a fusion biopsy together?

If the fusion biopsy and the pre biopsy MRI has a higher rate of finding clinically significant prostate cancer but is not good at finding the so called “insignificant prostate cancer” does this actually give you peace of mind?

Who started all of this anyway? Could it have been the same group that said the Psa was worthless and cost too much to find so little cancer, but now is recommending a $2,000 or so xray, an additional expense of the fusion biopsy set-up to do the biopsy only to say that the biopsy and MRI only detects clinically significant cancer.

Could it be instead of saying it only finds clinically significant prostate cancer…why not say…”Despite all of the extra stuff we have added and  the extra expense we are incurring we are, missing cancer?

Does this give you piece of mind or have all the doctors and researchers sold this to us?

Who is making money now? The urologist…or the MRI maker, the hospital that owns it, the radiologist that charges to read the study.

For those  readers who are new to this “prostate cancer detection” stuff, years ago there was an outcry about the expense of the psa…where is the outcry about the expense of the MRI before every biopsy and its attendant expenses. Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

You have to consider… the old adage…”Follow the money…and it ain’t the urologist.”

More later………

Ps…A prostate biopsy takes less than fifteen minutes using an ultrasound. An MRI alone takes around an hour…and that is just the start of it.

Pss…I don’t have a dog in this fight…these are just questions.