(Editor’s note: Jeff Coleman and I were emailing the other day about something or other, and he mentioned his “roller coaster of emotions” with having been diagnosed with perineural invasion. I published Jeff’s story on Sunday. I told him I coincidentally was preparing an article on PNI, featuring an interview with Hopkins urologic oncology fellow, Claire de la Calle, MD, who had reported on PNI in May at the American Urological Association annual meeting. Here’s Part II.)
Like the bogus microscopic determination of the G6 as a cancer, there is no hard scientific data that PNI is potentially deadly. Worse still, there is no hard scientific data to support surveillance biopsies randomly and blindly sampling 0.1% of the prostate as being safe and beneficial. The prostate cancer arena remains full of half-truths and misrepresentations and is mostly, without the support of irrefutable and reproducible data.
It was a few years ago that I read the book, this was when Ralph was first up at bat. I do believe the whole idea was his and that he corralled Dr. S. to go along with it. Which he was only too happy to do, of course. Not sure if it should be required reading for anybody who gets a PCa diagnosis, but as my grandmother (or someone's) used to say: It vudn't hoit.
Dr. V. Thanks for sharing your views. Have you ever been challenged by urologists?
Like the bogus microscopic determination of the G6 as a cancer, there is no hard scientific data that PNI is potentially deadly. Worse still, there is no hard scientific data to support surveillance biopsies randomly and blindly sampling 0.1% of the prostate as being safe and beneficial. The prostate cancer arena remains full of half-truths and misrepresentations and is mostly, without the support of irrefutable and reproducible data.
It was a few years ago that I read the book, this was when Ralph was first up at bat. I do believe the whole idea was his and that he corralled Dr. S. to go along with it. Which he was only too happy to do, of course. Not sure if it should be required reading for anybody who gets a PCa diagnosis, but as my grandmother (or someone's) used to say: It vudn't hoit.
Good piece, Howard. And valuable info. One tiny quibble: the authors of the Prostate Snatchers book are Ralph Blum and Dr. Scholz.