>>The published state of diagnosis, treatment and imagined benefits from relatively bottomless pockets don't add up for me: I cannot imagine radiation treatment that much better/less risky for a billionaire to turn to at age 81 (assuming such a billionaire had PSA checked for years and the things found in biopsy were typical slow growth type), so I suspected some GiGo effect for my poor,limited POV.

Yep, we can't be sure- though Harvard professors grumbled that the media reports sent completely the wrong message about PSA in the elderly.

I do know that in healthcare, $$$$$$ doesn't always deliver a better result. Ironically that's covered in the House of God as well - when a luminary from the Zock family (who donated the $ for the hospital's "Wing of Zock") is admitted, bracing himself for an exhausting whirlwind of investigations and consultations with no stone left unturned, the young doctor hero throws the rest of the Zock family out of the room and follows the 13 laws including "Masterly Inactivity" ... allowing the patient to recover from his exhausting stressful existence rather than being worn down further by a barrage of "care."

Certainly it's true that if $$$$$$ is accompanied by a habitual declaration that "money is no object" then no stone will be left unturned. If you review the laws I postulated in an earlier message to Tamar - then PSA in the elderly is a prime example of where you might prefer not to investigate things you don't plan to treat, in which case "masterly inactivity" can be the best way to avoid doing harm. It also saves a lot of $$. Unfortunately the US system is set up to prevent physicians behaving as they'd like.