surgery vs seeds vs waiting

[Guest guest]

It appears that most people or many that post on this site seem to

favor the surgery. Most of the people that I have spoken with

personally favor 'the seeds'. The people I do know that have had

surgery are slow to recover and for the most part have had ''life'

changing adjustments. It seems that many people want to 'rid'

themselves of cancer and in all reality, in this day and age, whether

it is active or not, I believe everyone in this part of the world has

some type of 'infected' or cancerous cell in their body.

A person I work with is going back to Mayo after 1 year to fix a

leaky 'faucet'. Another person that I know still can not golf 1 year

later due to leakage. I am not sure if I am being influenced

incorrectly or just hearing what I want to hear..

I imagine it all depends on the severity or 'scores'. I know I am

painting with a pretty broad brush but thought I would throw this out

there.

Dan

>

> > Men who receive radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer

> > have an increased risk of bladder cancer compared to patients

> > undergoing radical prostatectomy and compared to the general

> > population. The risk of rectal cancer is increased in patients

> > who receive external beam radiotherapy compared to radical

> > prostatectomy.

> ...

>

> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18801517

>

> This abstract cited by contains some numbers for

> " relative risk " and for " standardized incidence ratio " . Are

> there any statistical sophisticates in our group who can

> interpret for me what those mean?

>

> As is so often the case in medical research studies, the numbers

> are confusing even apart from trying to figure out what they

> mean. The " standardized incidence ratios " for rectal cancer

> developing after surgery, external beam, brachytherapy, and

> external+brachytherapy were: 0.91, 0.99, 0.68 and 0.86

> respectively.

>

> That makes it look like patients receiving either form of

> brachytherapy had *less* rectal cancer than patients receiving

> surgery - which is not what the title of the article says nor

> what we would expect.

>

> Any and all insights are invited.

>

> Thanks.

>

> Alan

>