Louisiana State University Urologist Passionately Disagrees With United States Preventative Services Task Force
Louisiana State University (LSU) may be best known for it’s high-performing college football team — the #1-ranked Tigers defeated Alabama 9-6 in an overtime barn-burner last night — but Dr. J. Christian Winters, a professor and chair of Urology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine is also getting some attention for his outspoken critique of the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), which recently raised eyebrows for its controversial report against routine Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) screening.
Dr. Winters, in an Op-Ed column in The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune entitled “Early detection vital in prostate cancer”, urges men to ignore the USPSTF, saying, “I hope many men are as concerned about a report based on technology and treatments as old and outdated as the diagnostic methods we may be relegated to. Gentlemen, we should follow the lead of women who rallied with outrage when the task force made similar reckless recommendations about screening mammography.”
The United States Preventative Services Task Force’s report on PSA screening, issued in October, said that studies showed that significant numbers of men (20-30%) have very significant harms resulting from the tests.
Dr. Winters passionately disagrees. “This dangerous report may lead to future denials of the use of PSA testing in men, which will be a substantial impediment in providing high-quality care,” he wrote.
The full transcript of his column can be found @ NOLA.com.
Canadian Doctors Find Face on Testicle in Ultrasound
The Montreal Gazette reports of a very unexpected finding by Canadian researchers who recently conducted an ultrasound to review a growth on a patient’s testicles: the mass looked like a face staring back at them.
“It was almost like art coming out of this patient’s testicles,” said Dr. Naji Touma, an assistant professor of urology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “It was an amusing finding.”
Ultrasound image of a growth on a testicle. Source: Queen's University handout
“It’s purely coincidental,” Dr. Touma said. “That’s what came to our mind, though, that somebody would look at this like the Virgin Mary on toast . . . but it’s not the case.”
Touma and another doctor colleague, Gregory Roberts, discovered the “face” in one of more than three dozen images that were scanned of the patient, a 45-year-old paraplegic man. Fortunately, the growth was benign and doctors removed the testicle with no complications.
The case was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Urology under the title, The Face of Testicular Pain: A Surprising Ultrasound Finding.
Dr. Touma said it was just the way shadows fell in that particular image that created the “face”, which bears a slight resemblance to Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream. Meanwhile, the patient was less concerned about the facial image than his overall health.
MSNBC.com’s Jane Weaver writes, “A mystical image or sheer coincidence? Either way, that’s one sad ‘nad.”
Leading Urologists Favor Routine PSA Tests
Renal & Urology News reports most leading urologists recommend routine Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) testing for men aged 50 and older, despite a recent recommendation against routine screening from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
A survey conducted by U.S. News World & Report found that 95% of urologists from their America’s Top Doctors disagreed with the USPSTF’s conclusion — which found that PSA screening served no benefit for men under the age of 75 — and 97% of the “best urologists” said they would undergo PSA testing themselves.
See more @ RenalandUrologyNews.com.