PSA ?

No, that doesn't stand for Pacific Southwest Airlines. Remember them? If so, you're as old as I am. It was a great local airline which ended up with others as US Airways. Still a great local airline? Not so much.

PSA stands for Prostate Specific Antigen, which measures the amount of some sort of agent generated by the prostate gland and can, but not necessarily, the presence of cancer cells. There have been a number of medical reports recently issued which lead one to believe that the screening is a waste of time and money. The theory is that receiving a PSA reading over a certain number will cause too many men to go seek useless treatments because, "you'll die of something else before you will of prostate cancer", and you'll diminish your quality of life by seeking treatment especially that of radical surgery.

Let me tell you something. Screenings can save your life. Blaming cancer screening for doing more harm than good is targeting the wrong villain. It's not the screening process itself, it's the failure to identify which cancers are realtively bgenigh and which are aggresive and deadly. Doctors who fail sufficiently to explain the difference between dangerous and non-dangerous tumors are the problem.

So, go and do the right thing. If your'e 50 or more, make sure you get an anuual degital exam as well as the simple PSA blood test. My treatment, brachytherapy or radioactive seed implementation is brought my PS down from 6.3 to 3.5, to 2.6, and now down to 1.5 all in 9 months. I believe it will cotinue to go down for at least another 6 months or so. My treatment didn't affect my quality of life whatsoever.

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
(Courtesy of Our Daily Bread)

As God adds years to your life, ask Him to add life to your years.

Blessings, Desert Dave