prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a significant disease—approximately 10 percent of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and the lifetime risk of dying of the disease is three percent.

Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) is an imaging tool with growing use in diagnosis, risk assessment, and management of individuals with prostate cancer. Explore current challenges with prostate cancer detection and diagnosis, and the role of mpMRI.
 

The incidence of prostate cancer - especially the early stages - has been increasing steadily for years. This is also due to early detection methods, such as PSA screening or urological prostate exams. If diagnosed in its early stages, prostate cancer can nowadays be treated successfully with innovative methods.

Slides from presentations given at the 48th annual M.U.D. Conference have been posted at their website. Presentations include:

• The Population is Abusing Drugs, but Are Drugs Abusing Insurance? 
• Update from the Cuckoo’s Nest: Mental Health Underwriting  
• Electronic Medical Records - State of the Union Update
• The Rise and Fall of Liver Biopsy
• Prostate Cancer- To screen or not to screen that is the question 
• Through Thick and Thin – Red Blood Cell Disorders
• Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Evaluating Those with a Big Heart 
• Using Third Party Scoring in Accelerated Underwriting
• Data Analytics & Underwriting: Are 20th-century regulations still appropriate for 21st-century underwriting? 
• Anti Aging, Youthful Medication, Longevity/HGH 
• Mind the Gap- Understanding the influence of anti-selection and various holes in the underwriting process of accelerated versus traditional underwriting 

Insurers design critical illness policies with the intention being to cover medical conditions that are likely to have a life-changing impact on the life insured, with payment alleviating financial pressure as recovery and adjustment to an altered way of life take place. Should insurers include lower risk prostate cancer in such products or are they well positioned to exclude these altogether, considering the favorable outcome?

Getting insurance for individuals with cancer has its challenges.  What was the cancer, how was it treated, how long has it been since therapy, what has the follow-up treatment been?  The keyword in these scenarios is treatment.  What if there has been no treatment at all?   Prostate cancer is one of those processes where both doctors and patients may opt to defer treatment because of the slow growing nature of the disease, but the unknown outcome makes getting insurance even more problematic.

Patients with early stage, low risk prostate cancer are typically treated with radical prostatectomy, external beam radiation therapy or active surveillance. We examine how these different management options affect life insurance underwriting practices.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men, with 220,800 new cases in 2015. It is also the second leading cause of cancer death in men (behind lung cancer). Prostate cancer is usually diagnosed later in life, from ages 50 to 75, which are prime insurance-buying ages. As a result, the insurance industry has paid great attention to developments in the screening and treatment of prostate cancer.

http://www.canadalifere.com/web5/groups/common/@public/documents/web_con... (article on page 3)

Slides from the 2016 SEHOUA Meeting have been posted. They include:

1. Betsy Sears – “Young Kids, Old Bodies”
2. Dr. Stout – “Drugs and Alcohol – The Landscape”
3. Dr. Titcomb - “Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW): An Underappreciated Marker for Increased Mortality
4. Mike Clift – “Motor Vehicle Reports and Driving Criticism Trends, Technology and Terminology”
5. Dr. Greene - "Prostate Cancer: A Decade of Change"
6. Dr. Dave Rengachary - “Advances in Multiple Sclerosis”
7. Dr. Rooney – Genetics: A Discussion of How our Genes Impact Mortality”
8. Ron Schaber, Philip R. Murphy and Greg Brandner - “Big Data Today and Tomorrow – the drive toward fully underwritten pricing”

https://www.ahou.org/ContentManagement/ContentShow.aspx?s=FFx04kWZTrk=

Insurance blood testing for most, if not all, insurers includes a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test in males above a certain age range. Unlike testing for diabetes or kidney or liver disease, however, the PSA test is more controversial. It allows insurers to price more aggressively with a favorable result and requires more investigation with a questionable one.

http://www.brokerworldmag.com/articles/articles.php?articleid=3728