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Deciding between radiation and prostatectomy
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Jun 24 9:51am | Replies (34)Comment receiving replies
I used these charts to make my decision to go for LDR brachytherapy when I was first diagnosed with low risk (Gleason 6) cancer in 2020 as it showed a better outcome to remain disease free than surgery. Four years later with a recurrence of high risk Gleason 9 Stage 3 N1 disease I wish I would’ve opted initially for surgery.
As someone that used data extensively in an arguably successful engineering career I can safely state that data always tells a story however the story it tells may be based on an amalgam that includes data that may be irrelevant to a given and specific situation. Caution is always warranted to make the best possible decision.
Best wishes to everyone on their journey with PCa.
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Yes, I understand what you mean. We have the same problem in my professional field (I don't want to be too specific, because it might make it easy to identify me). There's a big push for "data-driven decision making", but data alone gives a false sense of confidence that you're taking a factual/neutral approach, when it's really just a very-low-resolution, pixelated snapshot of a complex, messy reality.
These days, there's a big push to combine quantitative and qualitative data (including feedback from the people we're supposed to be serving and the experience of practitioners) to get a better-rounded picture of what's happening and where we can fit in. The data still matters a lot — especially for things like drug trials — but it's just the start of the journey, not the end.