"You punctured a lung." LOL

I would fucking hate to be a friend of Ricky Gervais's.

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

I would fucking hate to be a friend of Ricky Gervais's.


I really don't think he's as bad as he comes across, or he wouldn't have any friends! Karl could just refuse, haha

A great article in Scientific American makes a pretty good case that you should avoid prostate exams in almost all cases. Ricky is both mean and dangerous to be associated with.

Most of the article is about the PSA blood test, but it provides some amazing general statistics: "to save one life from prostate cancer, about 1,400 men would have to be screened, leading 48 men to undergo treatment. So 47 men would be treated unnecessarily - many of whom would suffer fairly serious side effects - so that one man's death from prostate cancer could be prevented."

I just don't know why he did it. He doesn't own you, just say no, Fuck Off.

@Yogi Perhaps because it's the most common form of cancer here in the UK and so many men remain undiagnosed because they're too scared to have it done and he though, fuck it. I dunno. Because it was funny and he knew it would be? I don't really understand what's dangerous about it @Skeeve? I can guarantee you that here they wouldn't treat anyone unnecessarily here on the NHS

The problem is that people do get treated unnecessarily.

The real problem, though, is that doctors do not have a reliable way to determine which of these very small cancers that are caught by a biopsy are potentially dangerous and which will never bother a man in his lifetime. (Indeed, autopsy studies show that more than half of men in their 50s and three quarters of men in their 80s in the U.S. had prostate cancer but died of something else.)[...]Such ambiguity would not be so bad if the treatments were virtually risk free.[...] Surgery (open radial prostatectomy) often results in urinary leakage [...] damage to the nearby muscle that controls urination may lead to incontinence. [...] Meanwhile, the nerves and blood vessels controlling erections may be severed during surgery, causing erectile dysfunction (impotence).[...] Radiation therapy of the prostate often ends up damaging the rectum and bladder because it is hard to avoid radiation scatter[...] Moreover, rectal bleeding and fecal soiling are frequent but commonly unreported side effects of both radiation therapy (including radioactive seed implants) and surgical approaches.



People do get treated unnecessarily. And those treatments have side effects that can be far worse than living with the cancer. Only 4 percent of prostate cancers spread to the bones or organs. Medical organizations now advise that asymptomatic men should not have routine screening unless they have a strong family history of prostate cancer.>> ^alien_concept:

@Yogi Perhaps because it's the most common form of cancer here in the UK and so many men remain undiagnosed because they're too scared to have it done and he though, fuck it. I dunno. Because it was funny and he knew it would be? I don't really understand what's dangerous about it @Skeeve? I can guarantee you that here they wouldn't treat anyone unnecessarily here on the NHS

>> ^Skeeve:

The problem is that people do get treated unnecessarily.
The real problem, though, is that doctors do not have a reliable way to determine which of these very small cancers that are caught by a biopsy are potentially dangerous and which will never bother a man in his lifetime. (Indeed, autopsy studies show that more than half of men in their 50s and three quarters of men in their 80s in the U.S. had prostate cancer but died of something else.)[...]Such ambiguity would not be so bad if the treatments were virtually risk free.[...] Surgery (open radial prostatectomy) often results in urinary leakage [...] damage to the nearby muscle that controls urination may lead to incontinence. [...] Meanwhile, the nerves and blood vessels controlling erections may be severed during surgery, causing erectile dysfunction (impotence).[...] Radiation therapy of the prostate often ends up damaging the rectum and bladder because it is hard to avoid radiation scatter[...] Moreover, rectal bleeding and fecal soiling are frequent but commonly unreported side effects of both radiation therapy (including radioactive seed implants) and surgical approaches.

People do get treated unnecessarily. And those treatments have side effects that can be far worse than living with the cancer. Only 4 percent of prostate cancers spread to the bones or organs. Medical organizations now advise that asymptomatic men should not have routine screening unless they have a strong family history of prostate cancer.>> ^alien_concept:
@Yogi Perhaps because it's the most common form of cancer here in the UK and so many men remain undiagnosed because they're too scared to have it done and he though, fuck it. I dunno. Because it was funny and he knew it would be? I don't really understand what's dangerous about it @Skeeve? I can guarantee you that here they wouldn't treat anyone unnecessarily here on the NHS



I have no idea dude, whether it's the same here or not. Your post is very interesting. All I do know is my dad had prostate cancer after being checked and they caught it early enough for him to get away with a few weeks of radiation therapy, so maybe I'm biased