Free prostate and testicular screening... why is there none?

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

We have a wonderful free breast and cervical screening provided by the state, there might have been some detrimental errors made, but the screening exists nonetheless and they are a wonderful service.

However, why is there none for male specific cancers such as prostate and testicular?

You might argue that men can do a self exam in the shower, but by the time lumps are apparent it is often progressed and more serious. By that logic, women can do a breast exam in the shower too. Furthermore, vasectomised men often have small lumps called sperm granulomas which further strengthens the argument for national testicular screening so men aren't ignoring more sinister lumps thinking they're just granulomas.

Prostate cancers are very curable if caught early but needs a professional medical exam and intervention before any symptoms such as pain or bladder issues arise.

For the inevitable argument "just go to your GP". A GP consultation is €60 and an ultrasound is €120... So men have to fork out €180 for an equivalent procedure that women get free.
Free screening will save lives.

Why is there no free prostate and testicular screening?

DUDE - dont steal my grindr profile!

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

[Deleted User] wrote: »

DUDE - dont steal my grindr profile!

Would you mock a thread about women's cancer issues? I doubt it.
If a man mocked a thread about women's cancer he'd be banned. Welcome to 2020.

gmisk

I don't disagree especially with regards prostate cancer it is pretty common above a certain age

Better Than Christ

Because there's no demand for it.

There should be, but men often tend to avoid getting that kind of thing checked out, especially if the test is... a bit on the invasive side.

Mattdhg

Completely agree.

To be honest it baffles me seeing so many lads raising money for breast cancer with the 5k runs etc etc, I know they often think of their mothers and sisters who may get it but there's much less support for male specific cancers. I think the death rates are reflective of that too with a lesser proportion surviving prostate than breast cancer due to it being caught late

Edit - According to a very shallow Google search 1 in 8 Irish men will get prostate cancer and 1 in 9 women will get breast cancer. It says prostate is one of the most curable kinds, but anecdotally I know a lot of men my fathers age who only were diagnosed when it was at an advanced stage.

deandean

I think the main reason is that women are better organised that they make a lot more noise about what they want..

mikhail

gmisk wrote: »

I don't disagree especially with regards prostate cancer it is pretty common above a certain age

I'm reading Bill Bryson's The Body: A Guide for Occupants at the moment. I am on the chapter on cancer. He quotes stats that something like 50% of men who die in their 60s are found to have prostate cancer. The figure rises to 75% for men in their 70s. Bryson repeats something I've read elsewhere: that it's speculated that if nothing else kills us, our prostates eventually will.

I have no idea how useful a mass screening programme would be. Indeed, I think there has been some criticism of mass screening for breast cancer as it has resulted in a heap of unnecessary mastectomies: if you're looking for needles in a haystack, you don't need to misidentify hay very often to find a few false needles. I haven't followed that discussion, so I don't know if the argument has been firmly rebutted, but I assume there's some difficult to assess cost-benefit analysis at the heart of it that doesn't lend itself to easy answers.

s1ippy

If anything the argument above that there's no demand for it should make it am absolutely essential free screening for everyone over a certain age. There should be awareness campaigns as well with celebrities like George Hook and Ivan Yates.

Nah actually that would put people off. Michael Fassbender and Daniel Day Lewis.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Would you mock a thread about women's cancer issues? I doubt it.

If you took a moment to look into my posting history then you would already know the answer to this.

Which is "yes" I would mock any topic you bring up in After Hours with a joke before anything else. And then I will take it as seriously as anyone else

It is what after hours is _for_ according to the charter.

As a case in point -

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

If a man mocked a thread about women's cancer he'd be banned. Welcome to 2020.

Meh - itd consider the topic on the right - and the topic on the left - and make my decisions on which one felt harder.

LuasSimon

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Mattdhg

LuasSimon wrote: »

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Look at the last government, look at the new one they're trying to form. There won't be a whole lot of travelers, females, gays, transgender or black people in the mix.

Better Than Christ

LuasSimon wrote: »

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Yes, that's definitely it. Straight men are the biggest victims of discrimination. It's definitely got nothing to do with the fact that we tend to be a bit squeamish about the idea of a stranger prodding around with our balls and arseholes.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Better Than Christ wrote: »

Because there's no demand for it.

There should be, but men often tend to avoid getting that kind of thing checked out, especially if the test is... a bit on the invasive side.

All the more reason to make it available.
And campaigns etc.

Why do companies go pink for breast cancer and never blue for male cancers?

The cervical screening is just as invasive as the prostate one, if not more.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Mattdhg wrote: »

Look at the last government, look at the new one they're trying to form. There won't be a whole lot of travelers, females, gays, transgender or black people in the mix.

Women make up 50ish% of the population.

No one stopped women from running for office or voting for other women.

Stop restoring to whataboutery

Bogfairy

Look what happened with cervical screening. They'd make a balls of it ...

fleet_admiral

Because men don't matter. Look at the suicide rate, the homelessness rate. Men make up the vast vast majority.
If women were over 80%, of the suicide rate there would be war and massive government intervention

Mattdhg

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Women make up 50ish% of the population.

No one stopped women from running for office or voting for other women.

Stop restoring to whataboutery

Its easy take my post out of context and turn it into something else. It was related to the other poster whining about minority groups having it all

Necro

Mod:

Folks AH is for light hearted topics which this... most certainly is not. I'm going to move the thread to Current Affairs. Please read the charter there before posting.

reklamos

Better Than Christ wrote: »

Yes, that's definitely it. Straight men are the biggest victims of discrimination. It's definitely got nothing to do with the fact that we tend to be a bit squeamish about the idea of a stranger prodding around with our balls and arseholes.

The thing is, PSA(Prostate-specific antigen) is a blood test, so anyone can do it, just ask your GP.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

reklamos wrote: »

The thing is, PSA(Prostate-specific antigen) is a blood test, so anyone can do it, just ask your GP.

Again, we have to pay when women get their equivalents for free

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

Bogfairy wrote: »

Look what happened with cervical screening. They'd make a balls of it ...

The false negatives were a tiny percentage of tests.

Besides, it's nothing compared to the number of men who die who never got tested at all.

El_Duderino 09

Men's health is a topic that more men will get excited about to have a little whinge about, but will also oppose campaigns to raise awareness of them and the need for more services for men's issues.

Take International Men's Day in November as an example. Loads of men actually oppose the day and ridicule it and the reasons for it.

Ultimately the answer is that nothing happens just because it's a good idea. There are more good ideas than there is money to fund them. Things happen when people campaign for them. In the absence of campaigning for men's health services, they're much less likely to happen.

boombang

Prostate cancer is common in older men, but most are slow burners that are unlikely to kill you. It's often described as the cancer you die with, not of. Basic screening procedures are estimated by many researchers to do more harm than good due to the damaging operations given to men with screen detected cancers that would turn out to be slow burners. The consequences of operations include erectile dysfunctional and urinary incontinence. For this reason most health scientists in Europe don't recommend screening for men.

Some men have more aggressive prostate cancers. Generic risk profiling promises ways of tragetting screening to men who will benefit from it. That's coming soon.

There is loads of prostate screening that happens in Ireland and the US, largely because of a incentives in private medicine in which the doctor puts their financial interests ahead of the patient.

I don't know about testicular cancer. I suspect it's too rare to be worth screening for. Men should keep an eye on their balls to check for changes.

As a man, probably the most important thing you can do re screening is to take your bowelscreen test. This is really worthwhile, especially for men, but less than 40% take the free test (ages 60-69).

gmisk

LuasSimon wrote: »

Men , tax payers , white people have very little say these days ..... you have to be a traveller , female , gay , transgender , black to count in modern Ireland .

Huh?
Look at your TDS.... predominantly white and male...

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

boombang wrote: »

Men should keep an eye on their balls to check for changes.

Did you bother to read the OP and the thread?

I said by the time lumps are apparent it's often too late.

There are almost the same incidences of testicular cancer as breast cancer.

Rodin

Breast Cancer has been unsuccessful anyway.
It really should be scrapped. Too many women having unnecessary treatments.

johnnyskeleton

You can check for signs of testicular cancer yourself, and prostate cancer is low risk for younger people. Older people tend to get prostate checks from their GP if they want it.

Compared with cervical and brest cancer requiring special equipment to check and affecting younger people.

So in reality the only people discriminated against are those too lazy to check their own testicles

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

You can check for signs of testicular cancer yourself, and prostate cancer is low risk for younger people. Older people tend to get prostate checks from their GP if they want it.

Compared with cervical and brest cancer requiring special equipment to check and affecting younger people.

So in reality the only people discriminated against are those too lazy to check their own testicles

Read the OP?

By the time lumps appear it's too late.

US scans detect precancerous cells.

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS!

gmisk wrote: »

Huh?
Look at your TDS.... predominantly white and male...

And who voted for them?

Mattdhg

Hairy Japanese BASTARDS! wrote: »

Did you bother to read the OP and the thread?

I said by the time lumps are apparent it's often too late.

There are almost the same incidences of testicular cancer as breast cancer.

I'd believe it, I'm my late teens I found a testicular lump and went to the Gp who didn't even bother to examine me, just sent me for an ultrasound. The guy doing the ultrasound was able to tell me it was a harmless lump due to excess calcification of duct tissue, I think.

Its not very encouraging. They both gave me minimal information, and the lump never went ~5 years on meaning I'm always on edge that it might mask a real tumour.

To be fair to the colleges, they often have a free check service on campus which is a great facility