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Comment by petra | Hacker News Reader

>> That way she could see how many diseases were caught early, how many diseases were missed, and how many times false positives occurred

I don't understand why this article continually mixes one thing tests do(measuring physical quantities) with another(predicting disease) ? The way to evaluate theranos is whether they measure the physical quantities correctly(and it appears they are not), not with the complexity of predicting disease from those numbers. That's a job for other parts of the medical establishment.

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You can catch many things early, if you test your blood often. Cancer is the big one.

Provided you can measure it accurately first.

I think you're missing the point. The point is there are two parts: 1) accurately measuring what's in the blood and 2) making an accurate prediction of future outcomes based on the measurements of what's in the blood. You can fail at one and succeed at the other, but it's not really useful unless you can do both.

Assuming this is true (which is a stretch) this is tricky business - you are assuming detecting all types of cancer in asymptomatic individuals has no downsides. In reality it has major downsides, this is the reason why the the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force no longer recommends the PSA antigen test be used for routine population wide screening.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-against-early-c...

That's early testing, specifically "average-risk men aged 55 to 69 years".

E.g. my 82 year old father would be dead or severely suffering today if his routine, over 69 years of age PSA tests hadn't prompted his doctor to order a biopsy 5 years ago.

Your father might be dead or suffering today. It is impossible to be certain about the natural course of a disease after you intervene. I'm glad your father is doing well, of course, but we should be cautious: stories like this one tend to bias people towards treatment with what is technically a false representation of facts. I hate to seem pedantic, but accuracy is crucial in discussions like this.

Given the Gleason score, let's just say would/might -> most likely.

I don't doubt that you (or whoever) had additional information and made a sound decision.

Point being simply that someone reading your original comment (or such comments generally) doesn't have the full context and might not realize it. I'm not making a point about your situation, but about how the internet is often misused by people seeking to make their own decisions. A subject that fascinates me.

Well, all that's after the fact 20/20 hindsight.

Initially, all he and his doctor knew was that he was 77 years old and his routine, approved by the powers that be, PSA test results took a worrisome turn, bad enough that a biopsy was indicated.

My father's case only supports the Official Word, that starting at age 70 you should get PSA tests. WRT to people making their own decisions, I highly advise that, if you're 70 or older, to get regular PSA tests!

>My father's case only supports the Official Word, that starting at age 70 you should get PSA tests. WRT to people making their own decisions, I highly advise that, if you're 70 or older, to get regular PSA tests!

I highly advise you don't take medical advice from hga on Hacker News based on one anecdote. The Official Word from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is "The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based screening for prostate cancer."

http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/U...

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/screening-for-disease-i...

Surgery for prostate cancer has some very serious side effects...

Before the fact, we know that cancer testing does not reduce mortality, with the possible exception of cervical cancer. PSA tests are the worst offenders.

Why cancer screening has never been shown to “save lives”—and what we can do about it

http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.h6080

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