?spread through the air? ? NOT! - New Prostate Cancer Infolink

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Sitemaster

How did we all miss this? This may be the single most important paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association this year!

According to a survey conducted by researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, and reported by Underwood et al. (and as discussed in an article on the MedPage Today web site:

One in six prostate cancer patients believed that cancer can be spread by air, and that belief may affect their treatment choices.

Furthermore,

Men who believed that air can spread cancer were more than three times as likely not to choose radical prostatectomy as a treatment option, compared with men who said cancer definitely cannot be spread by air.

In response to a a questionin the survey about the idea that air can spread cancer:

• 154/158 patients answered the question.
• 25/154 men (16.5 percent) agreed that air can indeed spread cancer.
• 50/154 (32.7 percent) stated that they didn?t know.
• Just over half (51 percent) stated that air definitely can not spread cancer.

We apparently need to be very clear about this ? There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that cancer can be spread through the air. Furthermore, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that, at the time of surgery, when the surgeon ?opens? an incision to remove the prostate and any related cancerous tissue, that cancer can ?spread through the air? to other parts of the patient?s body.

In discussing these findings, Underwood stated that

If a patient is going to have surgery, he might ask, ?What are you going to do if the cancer has spread?? ? Physicians might think the patient is asking whether the cancer has spread to other sites in the body. In fact, the patient might be asking, ?What are you going to do when you open me up and the air hits the cancer and spreads it?? We think that?s what some patients are asking.

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Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment Tagged: | air, misinformation, risk, spread

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