Faster diagnosis?

Ten years ago I was invited to give a talk at one of the monthly socials run by the Amersham & Chesham branch of the MS Society. Since then I have been asked back half a dozen times and fortunately I have found half a dozen other topics to talk about. Therefore when I spotted an Article by BBC reporter Caroline Wyatt titled How I’m feeling after my MS ‘body reboot’ I thought I would read it.

It is a well written (as you would expect) and thought provoking piece.

MRI a better route to identify PC

In my last post I mentioned a Radio 4 programme which discussed the grey areas in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. It also argued for MRI scans before prostate biopsies so that they could be targeted better. Since then a major breakthrough has been published in The Lancet and reported in the press – the BBC called it a ‘Huge leap‘. (The Lancet report is a bit technical for me, but I could understand the BBC report. I had an MRI before my biopsy.)

It appears that an MRI scan  is twice as likely to identify the presence of dangerous tumours as an invasive biopsy and that it identifies  93% of aggressive cancers, compared to 48% identified by a biopsy. It also means that the need for biopsies for men with suspected prostate cancer could be reduced by a quarter (no need to say “Ow”).

This is the second breakthrough in recent months – trials  have shown that a drug activated by laser light successfully destroys early prostate cancer while avoiding side-effects that commonly occur with surgery.