Cancer reaction linked to gender
Men and women affected by cancer look for information about the disease in very different ways, a study of internet postings about prostate cancer and breast cancer patients and partners suggests.
While men seek medical-scientific and practical advice, women look for emotional support. Men concerned about prostate cancer were interested in cancer tests, symptoms, the latest treatments and side effects. Women concerned about breast cancer sought emotional and social support. They were eager to share their personal experience and the impact of their cancer on family and relationships.
Clive Seale, a sociologist who specializes in health and the media, ran this study to find out whether reactions to cancer are linked to gender.
Seale’s team gave survey questions to 45 women with breast cancer and 52 men with prostate cancer. In addition he collected 1053 web postings through an online poll and analyzed specific keywords in the online postings on two popular forums, www.breastcancercare.org.uk and www.prostate-cancer.org.uk
About half of the people on the prostate cancer forum were women who had a loved one struck by the cancer and many men had joined the breast cancer forum for the same reason.
Seale, who works at Brunel University, thinks his findings can help inform those who support cancer patients. He told the BBC that his results show that men could be missing out on help to deal with their feelings and relationships.
“Equally some women may be missing out on medical information. One could imagine that each gender could benefit from what the other gender is interested in.”
Links: Clive Seale’s Home Page
The conclusion of this study misses the point -and it’s critical. I was going for a very new treatment (HIFU) about which the newsgroup I use (alt.support.cancer.prostate) was almost totally sceptical, and nobody had posted about it. So I explained why I chose it as follows:
“It is little understood, outside our band of ailing brothers, that we have to gamble on treatment more than most - or maybe any - groups with a potentially terminal illness. Probably no other patients’ group is offered such a wonderfully multifarious combination of treatments, none of which are guaranteed to work. The specialists simply do not have a solution. ( See one specialist’s rather careful summing up, on Marc Laniado’s website where he writes: “The situation is often difficult and experts frequently disagree. A careful decision needs to be made usually in conjunction with consultants in radiotherapy and urology.”)
Our specialists are skilled - at analysing the odds. They present us with the odds - multiple anti-androgen, radiation, and surgery treatments, and any combination thereof -not to forget ‘watchful waiting’. (That says it all about possible side effects. Is ww ‘treatment’ recognised in any other illness than Pca?) They advise us which gambling strategies might be best for us. But we are asked to throw our own dice. It is for us to consider which possible side effects may be least unacceptable in a procedure which may fail to cure.”
I concluded (much later!):
Comment by MikeG — April 18, 2006 @ 5:00 pmOne day I discovered I could take my chances on what might be a simple, rather than a tiresome and difficult solution. It might not be. But these odds, in good hands, seemed worth a roll to me.
Thanks for your comments. If you did the HIFU and want to report on what’s happening to you, feel free. I’ve been unable to trace the exact quotation you cite from your urologist, but this is Marc Landiado’s website and he operates at the Nuffield (UK).
Comment by admin — April 24, 2006 @ 6:20 am