Many men exhibit health care avoidance

Physicians, public health officials look for ways to increase men's involvement in medical care and improve health indicators.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. June 17, 2002.

The 17-year-old male was discovered unconscious in his home days after being a passenger in a car that crashed into a tree.

After the incident, he had been treated for minor injuries and sent home. But then, four days later, he was found with no pulse and rushed to the hospital. He was declared dead 30 minutes after arrival -- an outcome initially blamed on internal injuries not immediately apparent after the crash.

But this suspicion did not bear out.

An autopsy revealed that the teen had died of a blood clot in his lung caused by undiagnosed testicular cancer. The cancer had spread throughout his body.

This case was tragic. But what makes it even more noteworthy is a theme it highlights. Physicians, researchers and public health policy experts increasingly view the disparity in health outcomes between men and women as a result of how the sexes interact with the health care system.

Doctors at the Netherlands' Wilhelmina Hospital and the Netherlands Forensic Institute, for instance, wrote in the May 11 issue of The Lancet that this was not the case of a hidden cancer. The tumor would have weighed several pounds if it had all been removed. They also doubted that there was any chance the patient could have been unaware of the five-inch mass on his testicle.

Still, the patient didn't seek care. And testicular cancer, one of the least common cancers, is also one of the most curable. The article's authors suggest that the delay in diagnosis was probably caused by patient ignorance, fear and embarrassment. [...]