Hi Andrew,
I wonder if there really is any future for more long term studies?
They tell us that 90% of the scientists who have ever lived are alive today. Science is advancing faster than ever. There will be more discoveries next year than there were this year.
It is almost ten years since I was first diagnosed, and in that time I have seen new treatment options come along at an ever increasing rate.
I was quite involved in my local support group, but came to realise that my experience was becoming increasingly irrelevant for the newly diagnosed.
My own consultant has told me that he isn't sure what would be considered a safe benchmark PSA level for me, as too few patients have had the same treatment (salvage brachytherapy), but given that the doctors are now starting to give HDR brachytherapy from the off, there possibly won't be enough chaps like me who have brachytherapy after failed EBRT for the statisticians to ever calculate a proper risk/benefit ratio.
I suspect that one of the conundrums that the people at NICE face, is by the time they have waited for long term studies and then sat and deliberated, the treatments they recommend will have become obsolete?
:)
Dave