Looking at screenings

Re “A second opinion on prostate cancer,” Opinion, April 1

Recent studies that blame cancer screening for doing men more harm than good are targeting the wrong villain -- it’s not the screening process itself, it’s the failure to identify which cancers are relatively benign and which are aggressive and deadly.

Without the screening process, how is the doctor to discover the type of tumor present?

The harm and inconvenience the studies assert are not the result of the screening as such, but of doctors who fail sufficiently to explain the difference between dangerous and non-dangerous tumors and whether further treatment is appropriate.

Harold Gould

Woodland Hills

--

I have known close to 40 women who have had lumpectomies or mastectomies. These women are all alive and well today.

I have known three men who died from prostate cancer. I have a brother, a doctor, who was diagnosed at age 49 with an aggressive form of the disease that had spread beyond the prostate.

This leads me to wonder when and which treatments for diagnosed prostate cancer are appropriate. Perhaps studies should go beyond screening statistics and move into forms of the disease and methods of treatment.

Although it may not be correct to compare breast and prostate cancer prevention, I am grateful that so many women are offered and take advantage of mammogram screening.

Katharine Paull

Kagel Canyon