024 – Interview: Better Cancer Screening While Aging
Better Health While Aging
English - October 27, 2016 13:00 - ★★★★★ - 109 ratingsMedicine Health & Fitness Science Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Dr. K talks with Louise Walter, MD, an expert on cancer screening and life-expectancy in older adults. They discuss why cancer screening can cause more harm than good, how to figure out an older person's life-expectancy, and why the PSA test is no longer routinely recommended for prostate cancer screening.
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In This Episode:
Dr. K talks with Louise Walter, MD, an expert on cancer screening in older adults and the Chief of the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California San Francisco. They discuss:
Why it’s important to consider life-expectancy, before pursuing cancer screening
How doctors and others can better estimate life-expectancy
Why cancer screening can be harmful to some older adults
Why it’s important for older people to ask “How soon will this help me?”
Why screening for prostate cancer with the “PSA” test is often problematic
Dr. Walter’s top tips on making sure you get cancer screening services that are right for you
Related Resources:
Life expectancies of women and men by quartiles of health, from Dr. Walter’s 2001 article on cancer screening in older adults:
A selected list of Dr. Walter’s publications:
Cancer Screening in Elderly Patients: A Framework for Individualized Decision-Making
Screening Mammography in Older Women: A Review
ePrognosis.org
Breast and/or colon cancer screening tool
With 12 Questions, Quiz Gauges 4-Year Death Risk in Older Adults
NYTimes.com: Interactive tools to assess the likelihood of death
Prostate cancer screening decision aids (videos & PDF guide from the American Cancer Society)
US Preventive Services Task Force: Prostate Cancer Screening
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