A piece in yesterday’s Times by Chris Smyth, Health Editor:

Men thought to have prostate cancer must be given MRI scans on the NHS, campaigners said yesterday after a study confirmed that it was the most accurate way to diagnose the disease.

Use of MRI could allow a quarter of men being tested to avoid painful biopsies and pick up more dangerous cancers than the “stab-in-the-dark” methods used at present, the trial concluded.

NHS bosses have been urged to make such scans the routine testing method after the latest evidence that they could save lives and spare men side-effects.

Although many cancers are diagnosed using scans, men who have symptoms of prostate cancer must have a transrectal ultrasound-guided biopsy (Trus), in which a needle is inserted through the rectum to take a sample.

A British study last year compared biopsies to scans in the same men and found that the multiparametric MRI identified twice as many aggressive tumours and could have ruled out cancer in a quarter of patients.

An international study of 500 men has now found that MRI checks spared 28 per cent of men a biopsy. For those with worrying scans, using the MRI image to target the biopsy found significant cancers in 38 per cent of men, compared with only 26 per cent in those given standard, untargeted biopsies, according to results published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Veeru Kasivisvanathan of University College London, who presented the research at the European Association of Urology congress in Copenhagen, said that the results showed that “using an MRI to identify suspected cancer in the prostate, and performing a prostate biopsy targeted to the MRI information, leads to more cancers being diagnosed than the standard way that we have been performing prostate biopsy for the last 25 years”. He added: “A diagnostic pathway with initial MRI assessment, followed by biopsy when required, can not only reduce the overall number of biopsies performed but can give more accurate results.”

Karen Stalbow, of Prostate Cancer UK, said: “An MRI scan could and should be used to help guide prostate cancer biopsies. For too long men have had to endure a stab-in-the-dark biopsy technique, which can miss one in four harmful prostate cancers.”

She urged the NHS to prioritise the training and equipment needed to make MRI standard, saying that the latest findings gave “further high-quality evidence confirming that prostate biopsies, when targeted using MRI, are more accurate at detecting harmful cancers than a Trus biopsy alone”.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is due to decide next year whether NHS diagnostic methods must change, weighing up the cost of more £400 scans against fewer £500 biopsies and better treatment. Dr Kasivisvanathan said that the study told doctors “how to use the MRI information in real-life practice, and showed us that when using MRI to target biopsies to abnormal areas on MRI, that it is superior to Trus biopsy. The evidence suggests that the MRI pathway may be cost effective in a number of different healthcare settings. This is because costs are saved from a proportion of men avoiding biopsy altogether, earlier diagnosis of harmful cancers and the avoidance of diagnosis of harmless cancers.”

Hein Van Poppel, of the urology association, said: “MRI use also shows up small aggressive cancers at a curable stage and allows us to delay or simply not perform biopsies for some cancers which will not turn out to be dangerous. We need time to digest the study, but at first reading it looks like it has the potential to change clinical practice.”

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Our thanks to Nick for this.

Our thanks to Mike P for this, an interesting piece by Martin Daubney in yesterday’s Telegraph. An extract:

Having trained as a criminologist and counsellor and worked on front-line services with troubled men for over 20 years, Shaljean says her immersive and compassionate approach led to an awakening. “I’d worked a lot in anger management and change and started to piece together the affects of absent fathers when I was working across the domestic abuse, probation, homeless and addiction sectors. I started to ask: ‘Why are they like that?’ I saw the common thread of absent dads.

“The facts are startling: 1.1 million young people are growing up with little or no access to fathers. These men have less empathy and are more likely to go on and offend: 76pc of our prison population had an absent father. Some 84pc of the homeless population are men. Three quarters of suicides are men. If these statistics were reversed [applied to women], we would be out on the streets of Westminster picketing now. But we’re not.

“So as a mother of three boys, I decided to start Lads Need Dads”.

Our thanks to Mike P for this, a very silly piece in the Telegraph by Olivia Rudgard (Social Affairs Correspondent!) from 15 March. Basically it’s a silly reporter quoting verbatim other silly women, and citing silly reports and silly anecdotes. The end of the piece:

The report also argues that there was a “pressing need” for more female role models in business, particularly to encourage more girls to go into the science and technology sectors.

Many women are held back by lack of confidence, it says. Entrepreneur Jessica Wilkinson, founder of communications agency Petal & Co, said it was the biggest barrier to women starting their own businesses.

“This is why it matters so much that we shout about success stories and create powerful networks which support women on their journey,” she said.

This is just another example of the familiar narrative:

Women are strong!

Women are amazing!!

Women need relentless support and networks and role models to get off their arses and do anything!!!

Who will be the role models’ role models?

Why are there so few successful entrepreneurs women? It’s simple. Compared with men, women are:

• more anxious (which leads to a lack of confidence, granted)
• more narcissistic
• less work-oriented
• more risk-averse (especially with their own money)

We should expect only a small number of entrepreneurs to be women. As always, there is no problem here, so there is no need for a solution.

Our thanks to Mike P for this. Nurses and midwives will be able to cause the death of patients, and not suffer any consequences. The start of the piece in yesterday’s Telegraph:

Nurses and midwives will rarely be subject to public misconduct hearings and could avoid any sanctions for errors if they admit blunders early, under controversial new plans.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) wants to replace “cumbersome and adversarial” fitness to practice processes with a system that could mean most cases being heard behind closed doors.

Under the draft strategy, nurses who might currently expect to be struck off could continue working if they admit failings early and convince the watchdog that they have learnt their lessons. [J4MB: We can be very sure they will invariably “convince the watchdog”.]

Such an approach will apply even in the most grave cases, including those which resulted in patient deaths, [J4MB emphasis] the regulator’s head said.

Jackie Smith, NMC chief executive, said the plans, which would mean full hearings held “only in exceptional circumstances,” were an attempt to protect patient safety without “punishing” nurses and midwives for mistakes.

A piece by Oliver Moody, Science Correspondent, in yesterday’s Times:

Transgender men and women may carry genetic variants that influence their gender identity, a study suggests.

It is the first time researchers have identified a panel of genes, including DNA involved in the development of nerve cells and the manufacture of sex hormones, that could provide a biological basis for gender dysphoria. The findings add to the growing evidence that transgender people have fundamental differences in their brains and biochemistry that may help to explain why they feel at odds with their birth sex. “It lends legitimacy, if that needs to be added, that transgender is not a choice but a way of being,” Ricki Lewis, a geneticist and author of textbooks, said. “I think people will be excited by this.”

There are thought to be between 300,000 and 500,000 trans men and women in the UK, a very small minority of whom have undergone gender reassignment surgery. Other estimates for the prevalence of transgenderism vary hugely, from 0.3 to 5 per cent of the population.

Our thanks to HEqual for pointing us to this. Followers of this blog may recall the vile misandrous DCI Leanne Pook. She’s a personal friend of the male anti-FGM campaigner Sami Ullah, who claimed a Somali taxi driver told him he’d been responsible for having his daughter circumcised. It was clear before the man’s show trial that there was no case to answer, there was no evidence of the daughter having suffered any physical harm, but the trial proceeded all the same. It was the latest of a number of FGM trials to collapse for lack of evidence. Our blog piece on the scandal is here.

Outrageous (video, 1:57). In one breath Alex Mahon states a commitment to equal opportunities for men and women, in the next she commits to increasing the proportion of women in the top 100 highest-page positions from 34 to 50 by 2023 “at the latest”, which will inevitably require discrimination for women and against men, necessarily ditching the “equal opportunities for men and women” principle. There is no longer any pretence that increasing the proportion of women in top jobs has anything to do with merit.

Our thanks to Steve for this. It’s about time UKIP started to have policy positions on issues affecting men and boys.

Some wonderful news. Brendon Marotta, director of the new award-winning film American Circumcision, will be present at a screening of the film during the conference, and answering questions afterwards. His biography:

Brendon Marotta is an award-winning filmmaker based out of Austin, Texas, who has been making films since he was 14. Brendon graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts Film School, to work as a professional film editor. American Circumcision is his first feature-length documentary as director.

Details on the film here, Brendon’s Facebook page here.

You have only 12 days left to order your conference ticket(s) – here.