Need help with cancer screening

[foana]

I just had a quote from Healthlab Clinic in Thailand to test for cancers and wonder if I really need them all as a 39 yr old male? Can anyone advise on what is really necessary before delving deeper into the spectrum of peptide research?

Blood Tests (ตรวจจากเลือด)

1. AFP (Alpha-Fetoprotein)

Liver Cancer Marker – มะเร็งตับ

ราคา: 350 บาท

2. CEA (Carcinoembryonic Antigen)

Colon / Gastrointestinal Cancer Marker – มะเร็งลำไส้และระบบทางเดินอาหาร

ราคา: 400 บาท

3. CA 125 (Cancer Antigen 125) – Female

Ovarian Cancer Marker – มะเร็งรังไข่

ราคา: 700 บาท

4. CA 15-3 (Cancer Antigen 15-3) – Female

Breast Cancer Marker – มะเร็งเต้านม

ราคา: 700 บาท

5. PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) – Male

Prostate Cancer Marker – มะเร็งต่อมลูกหมาก

ราคา: 700 บาท

6. CA 19-9 (Cancer Antigen 19-9)

Pancreatic / Digestive Cancer Marker – มะเร็งตับอ่อนและระบบทางเดินอาหาร

ราคา: 700 บาท

7. NSE (Neuron-Specific Enolase)

Lung Cancer Marker – มะเร็งปอด

ราคา: 1,500 บาท

8. H. pylori Test (Helicobacter pylori)

Bacteria linked to stomach cancer – เชื้อที่เกี่ยวข้องกับมะเร็งกระเพาะอาหาร

ราคา: 800 บาท

9. Lymphoma Panel

Lymphatic Cancer Screening – มะเร็งต่อมน้ำเหลือง

ราคา: 5,500 บาท

⸻

Stool Tests (ตรวจจากอุจจาระ)

1. ColoTect DNA Test

Advanced Colon Cancer Screening – ตรวจ DNA มะเร็งลำไส้

ราคา: 6,900 บาท

2. Fecal Occult Blood & Inflammation Test

Hidden blood in stool (Colon cancer screening) – ตรวจเลือดแฝงในอุจจาระ

ราคา: 2,000 บาท

 

[LabRatts]

I just had a quote from Healthlab Clinic in Thailand to test for cancers and wonder if I really need them all as a 39 yr old male? Can anyone advise on what is really necessary before delving deeper into the spectrum of peptide research?

Blood Tests (ตรวจจากเลือด)

1. AFP (Alpha-Fetoprotein)

Liver Cancer Marker – มะเร็งตับ

ราคา: 350 บาท

2. CEA (Carcinoembryonic Antigen)

Colon / Gastrointestinal Cancer Marker – มะเร็งลำไส้และระบบทางเดินอาหาร

ราคา: 400 บาท

3. CA 125 (Cancer Antigen 125) – Female

Ovarian Cancer Marker – มะเร็งรังไข่

ราคา: 700 บาท

4. CA 15-3 (Cancer Antigen 15-3) – Female

Breast Cancer Marker – มะเร็งเต้านม

ราคา: 700 บาท

5. PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) – Male

Prostate Cancer Marker – มะเร็งต่อมลูกหมาก

ราคา: 700 บาท

6. CA 19-9 (Cancer Antigen 19-9)

Pancreatic / Digestive Cancer Marker – มะเร็งตับอ่อนและระบบทางเดินอาหาร

ราคา: 700 บาท

7. NSE (Neuron-Specific Enolase)

Lung Cancer Marker – มะเร็งปอด

ราคา: 1,500 บาท

8. H. pylori Test (Helicobacter pylori)

Bacteria linked to stomach cancer – เชื้อที่เกี่ยวข้องกับมะเร็งกระเพาะอาหาร

ราคา: 800 บาท

9. Lymphoma Panel

Lymphatic Cancer Screening – มะเร็งต่อมน้ำเหลือง

ราคา: 5,500 บาท

⸻

Stool Tests (ตรวจจากอุจจาระ)

1. ColoTect DNA Test

Advanced Colon Cancer Screening – ตรวจ DNA มะเร็งลำไส้

ราคา: 6,900 บาท

2. Fecal Occult Blood & Inflammation Test

Hidden blood in stool (Colon cancer screening) – ตรวจเลือดแฝงในอุจจาระ

ราคา: 2,000 บาท

I'd love to help but someone of a different skill set maybe better suited. Best of luck with your future exploration though!

 

[lessthanhalf]

The biggest issue by far of doing wide scale screening tests is false positives, especially for a 39 yo where the probability of true positive results are very low. Same goes for whole body CT scans or MRI. In general cancer is much much more of a common occurrence with advancing age, with a few exceptions. Increasing in incidence with each extra decade from 50 to 90 or so.

Even if the test has a low false positive rate, say 1% which would be excellent and better than most, then if your true chances of having cancer were one in ten thousand, there would be 100 false positive tests for every 1 true positive tests. So were you to get a positive test result , by far the most likely cause is you do not have a cancer, just a false positive test result.

In itself that is not a huge problem , but if you have tendencies towards anxiety , which is possible given you are thinking about doing those tests at that age, then the stress of this could be quite considerable. And then there is the costs and stress of follow up tests, that might even include invasive biopsies, to try to work out if you really do have something or not .

For a lot of cancers early detection and treatment improves chances of cure or long term remission, but this is not necessarily true for all of them or it is not known for certain if it is true, so there exists a decent chance of finding a cancer and having it treated, and the only real change in outcome in the long term is you spent 10 years knowing you had a cancer, having it treated with all the unpleasantness involved of surgery or radiotherapy or chemo, or all of them, and not living longer in the end than you would have if it was not picked up early.

Most men with the most common cancer in men die with prostate cancer from something else , not from the cancer. I am not saying screening for it is a bad idea, just that it is complicated.

There is a lot of money to be made from screening well people for cancer, this money can make clinics offer screening that is not justified by the evidence, And huge amounts of research go into this, trying to work out what screening programs at what ages are a good idea, and it is genuinely complicated. From what I see in the research there is a real chance that these massive scale metabolomic tests or circulating dna tests , with AI interpretation, will end up accurate enough to be really useful and pick up most cancers early from a blood test, but as far as I know there is nothing out there yet that is good enough to solve the false positive test problem, which adds a lot of extra testing and anxiety for possibly no benefit.

There are cancers that are worth screening for and especially so if extra risk factors exist - skin cancers, bowel cancer and breast cancer, cervical cancer etc. I am not actually up with current clinical practice in this area so this may be incomplete and it may be different in different countries as well. The simplest way to find out if you should be getting screening that is proven to be a benefit in your age group is just asking your doctor.

 

[myopicmystic]

Are you doing this because of concerns? It sounds like you’re doing it because of peptides.

I can’t tell you what is good or not. I agree with asking your doctor about it.

In my twenties, my doctor sent me for cancer screenings with genetic testing due to strong family history. Now, I am supposed to get yearly MRIs. One year, there was a change and it was biopsied (benign). The biopsy itself sucked since it was MRI guided and the lido wore off mid way through.

Looking back, I know back then that I was relieved to know it wasn’t genetic related. But, honestly it didn’t improve or change my life very much. If I had never gone, my life would have been the same thus far.

 

[Grogu]

If you want these tests just because you are starting to use peptides, that would seem a little overboard. But you might want to discuss this with your primary care physician or a medical professional. Your family medical history, any current symptoms, and current medical condition should be considered when thinking about cancer screenings.

Are you thinking about researching glp medications or something else? The advice would likely change if your considering growth hormones…

 

[FarmgirlRebel]

Wow that is a lot of screening! Wish I could give you some good advise but I cannot.

Are you concerned about cancer as it runs in your family or because of peptide use? Or just looking for a baseline?

I get the family history angle.

My family is prone to getting cancer. My mom and all her sisters dead by 61, my brother dead at 60. I'm older than them all at this point in my life, but not by much.

A test like those would give me way too much anxiety.

For me, at this point in my life, every year is a bonus and I've become rather fatalistic; I'll go home when I'm called...meanwhile, ride on

 

[foana]

The biggest issue by far of doing wide scale screening tests is false positives, especially for a 39 yo where the probability of true positive results are very low. Same goes for whole body CT scans or MRI. In general cancer is much much more of a common occurrence with advancing age, with a few exceptions. Increasing in incidence with each extra decade from 50 to 90 or so.

Even if the test has a low false positive rate, say 1% which would be excellent and better than most, then if your true chances of having cancer were one in ten thousand, there would be 100 false positive tests for every 1 true positive tests. So were you to get a positive test result , by far the most likely cause is you do not have a cancer, just a false positive test result.

In itself that is not a huge problem , but if you have tendencies towards anxiety , which is possible given you are thinking about doing those tests at that age, then the stress of this could be quite considerable. And then there is the costs and stress of follow up tests, that might even include invasive biopsies, to try to work out if you really do have something or not .

For a lot of cancers early detection and treatment improves chances of cure or long term remission, but this is not necessarily true for all of them or it is not known for certain if it is true, so there exists a decent chance of finding a cancer and having it treated, and the only real change in outcome in the long term is you spent 10 years knowing you had a cancer, having it treated with all the unpleasantness involved of surgery or radiotherapy or chemo, or all of them, and not living longer in the end than you would have if it was not picked up early.

Most men with the most common cancer in men die with prostate cancer from something else , not from the cancer. I am not saying screening for it is a bad idea, just that it is complicated.

There is a lot of money to be made from screening well people for cancer, this money can make clinics offer screening that is not justified by the evidence, And huge amounts of research go into this, trying to work out what screening programs at what ages are a good idea, and it is genuinely complicated. From what I see in the research there is a real chance that these massive scale metabolomic tests or circulating dna tests , with AI interpretation, will end up accurate enough to be really useful and pick up most cancers early from a blood test, but as far as I know there is nothing out there yet that is good enough to solve the false positive test problem, which adds a lot of extra testing and anxiety for possibly no benefit.

There are cancers that are worth screening for and especially so if extra risk factors exist - skin cancers, bowel cancer and breast cancer, cervical cancer etc. I am not actually up with current clinical practice in this area so this may be incomplete and it may be different in different countries as well. The simplest way to find out if you should be getting screening that is proven to be a benefit in your age group is just asking your doctor.

Thank you for the detailed response. Sound reasoning.

 

[foana]

Are you doing this because of concerns? It sounds like you’re doing it because of peptides.

I can’t tell you what is good or not. I agree with asking your doctor about it.

In my twenties, my doctor sent me for cancer screenings with genetic testing due to strong family history. Now, I am supposed to get yearly MRIs. One year, there was a change and it was biopsied (benign). The biopsy itself sucked since it was MRI guided and the lido wore off mid way through.

Looking back, I know back then that I was relieved to know it wasn’t genetic related. But, honestly it didn’t improve or change my life very much. If I had never gone, my life would have been the same thus far.

Only because of peptides. I'm healthy with no symptoms indicating cancers.

 

[foana]

If you want these tests just because you are starting to use peptides, that would seem a little overboard. But you might want to discuss this with your primary care physician or a medical professional. Your family medical history, any current symptoms, and current medical condition should be considered when thinking about cancer screenings.

Are you thinking about researching glp medications or something else? The advice would likely change if your considering growth hormones…

I definitely will be pursuing growth hormones. I did mention peptides to the clinic as the primary reason. They sent this list with quotation. Honestly yeah I think it seems overboard, I think I'll just go with a more basic blood screening for vitamins, hormones and organ function.

 

[foana]

Wow that is a lot of screening! Wish I could give you some good advise but I cannot.

Are you concerned about cancer as it runs in your family or because of peptide use? Or just looking for a baseline?

I get the family history angle.

My family is prone to getting cancer. My mom and all her sisters dead by 61, my brother dead at 60. I'm older than them all at this point in my life, but not by much.

A test like those would give me way too much anxiety.

For me, at this point in my life, every year is a bonus and I've become rather fatalistic; I'll go home when I'm called...meanwhile, ride on

I guess a baseline would give some peace of mind, but I cant argue with lessthanhalf's sound reasoning with false positives at a young age.

Theres no family history with cancer I'm aware of. I suppose I'm just concerned about the warnings with GH related peptides.

Appreciate the replies, from everyone.

 

[lessthanhalf]

I did not want to give the impression that all screening is a bad idea. All the issues in the previous post still apply , but for these ones at least there is evidence of overall survival benefit. Whether it outweighs all the costs and anxiety and tests is often a personal decision.

I do not know what country you are from , it says you are in thailand but I do not know if you live there long term or not. But just for example, in the US screening programs for men, different for women, exist and are proved to improve outcomes for colorectal cancer starting at 45, lung cancer if a smoker from 50, and prostate cancer from 50, but this one is not as clear cut about benefits of screening, and skin cancer sometimes depending on location and risks.

 

[Grogu]

I definitely will be pursuing growth hormones. I did mention peptides to the clinic as the primary reason. They sent this list with quotation. Honestly yeah I think it seems overboard, I think I'll just go with a more basic blood screening for vitamins, hormones and organ function.

I had a feeling that HGH or other secretagogues were on the table, so rather than all those cancer screenings, getting a baseline of your overall health through blood tests and a physical would probably be a better idea. Like these tests:

IGF-1

IGFBP-3

Fasting glucose

Hemoglobin A1c

Fasting insulin

Comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP)

Thyroid panel (TSH, Free T4, Free T3)

Lipid panel

ACTH

Morning cortisol

Prolactin

LH

FSH

Total testosterone

Estradiol

Complete blood count (CBC)

PSA (as appropriate)

Vitamin D

C-reactive protein (CRP)

Ferritin / iron panel

 

[foana]

I had a feeling that HGH or other secretagogues were on the table, so rather than all those cancer screenings, getting a baseline of your overall health through blood tests and a physical would probably be a better idea. Like these tests:

IGF-1

IGFBP-3

Fasting glucose

Hemoglobin A1c

Fasting insulin

Comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP)

Thyroid panel (TSH, Free T4, Free T3)

Lipid panel

ACTH

Morning cortisol

Prolactin

LH

FSH

Total testosterone

Estradiol

Complete blood count (CBC)

PSA (as appropriate)

Vitamin D

C-reactive protein (CRP)

Ferritin / iron panel

Thanks I had a lot of these listed already so this is helpful

 

[tubby]

The biggest issue by far of doing wide scale screening tests is false positives, especially for a 39 yo where the probability of true positive results are very low. Same goes for whole body CT scans or MRI. In general cancer is much much more of a common occurrence with advancing age, with a few exceptions. Increasing in incidence with each extra decade from 50 to 90 or so.

Even if the test has a low false positive rate, say 1% which would be excellent and better than most, then if your true chances of having cancer were one in ten thousand, there would be 100 false positive tests for every 1 true positive tests. So were you to get a positive test result , by far the most likely cause is you do not have a cancer, just a false positive test result.

In itself that is not a huge problem , but if you have tendencies towards anxiety , which is possible given you are thinking about doing those tests at that age, then the stress of this could be quite considerable. And then there is the costs and stress of follow up tests, that might even include invasive biopsies, to try to work out if you really do have something or not .

For a lot of cancers early detection and treatment improves chances of cure or long term remission, but this is not necessarily true for all of them or it is not known for certain if it is true, so there exists a decent chance of finding a cancer and having it treated, and the only real change in outcome in the long term is you spent 10 years knowing you had a cancer, having it treated with all the unpleasantness involved of surgery or radiotherapy or chemo, or all of them, and not living longer in the end than you would have if it was not picked up early.

Most men with the most common cancer in men die with prostate cancer from something else , not from the cancer. I am not saying screening for it is a bad idea, just that it is complicated.

There is a lot of money to be made from screening well people for cancer, this money can make clinics offer screening that is not justified by the evidence, And huge amounts of research go into this, trying to work out what screening programs at what ages are a good idea, and it is genuinely complicated. From what I see in the research there is a real chance that these massive scale metabolomic tests or circulating dna tests , with AI interpretation, will end up accurate enough to be really useful and pick up most cancers early from a blood test, but as far as I know there is nothing out there yet that is good enough to solve the false positive test problem, which adds a lot of extra testing and anxiety for possibly no benefit.

There are cancers that are worth screening for and especially so if extra risk factors exist - skin cancers, bowel cancer and breast cancer, cervical cancer etc. I am not actually up with current clinical practice in this area so this may be incomplete and it may be different in different countries as well. The simplest way to find out if you should be getting screening that is proven to be a benefit in your age group is just asking your doctor.

Excellent high-quality answer there. I might disagree with you in other areas, but you really hit the nail on the head with that post.

Only thing I might add to it is that expanded screening is likely a big reason that we see better cancer survival rates now. Whenever a center treats a false positive and "cures" them, those patients typically have pretty good 5-year cancer survival rates (seeing as how they didn't really have cancer in the first place). As a result that cancer treatment approach is then able to brag that their 5-year survival rates are better than what they were in the past (when cancer was only caught in the later stages).