Prostate misbehavior can dramatically change men and their partners forever. It can make a man’s life miserable and kill him, too. The risk of a man being diagnosed with prostate cancer is one in six, but certain circumstances increase that risk exponentially. For example: if the man is obese, he has an additional 30% risk, if he has a family history of prostate cancer (one diagnosed close relative: father, brother) his risk is twice as high, if he has two relatives his risk is five times higher, and with three relatives the likelihood of his developing prostate cancer is 97%. And if he is black, he still has a 40% to 50% higher risk and twice the probabilities of dying of this disease. Black population has the highest incidence and mortality of cancer rates in the U.S. , 70% higher than white population. Lifetime probability of a man developing prostate cancer is 46%.

No single cause has been identified yet. No single means to prevent it has been discovered either. However, we now know that prostate cancer is curable. The difference between dying of prostate cancer and having a good probability of being cured rests on early diagnosis, when the cancer is still localized within the gland. Most men are unaware of that difference, and a large percentage of those who know do believe they will not develop prostatic troubles. Many do not even know, until diagnosed, that they have a gland named prostate, and the media once confused it with the word “prostitute”.  

            This book, PROSTATE CANCER is CURABLE, has been patient-designed as an informative and educational vehicle. Its objectives: to induce the patient-to-be (a) to assume a more active responsibility for monitoring his health, (b) to develop, by anticipation before he becomes a patient, an attitude of confrontation with the illness and of positive cure, and (c) to gather enough data to be able to make educated decisions that are most favorable to him as an individual. Such data would be almost impossible for him to compile in the short period of time between his finding out that he has prostate cancer and the decisions demanded of him to do something about it –right away!

            Whether this is your first excursion into the intricacies of prostate [mis]behavior or another search for information, this book should be of help. It addresses a multiplicity of issues with provocative stimuli and arguments seldom found in other studies. A patient’s ability to make wise decisions depends on a combination of complex factors, among them: prevention, identification of symptoms, age, physical condition, philosophy of living, ancestry awareness, diversity of treatments, the patient’s and his partner’s preference for the quality-of-life consequences, however predictable or unpredictable they may be. This book also “dissects” for discussion most of the contemporary direct influences on the patient, e.g., attitude, statistics, drugs, physicians, HMOs, treatments, his rights and responsibilities. It includes a historical perspective of discoveries and advancements as well as current circumstances, thus unveiling the peaks and valleys of the unique prostate cancer landscape. That is, it looks at the prostate from introspective, provocative angles seldom explored; one may say that this book is different.

The data gathered for this book and digested into summaries are the result of a five-year study from a variety of sources:

• Books written by physicians, by patients or by a collaboration of both, and personal correspondence with some of those authors,

   

• Medical news and articles published in newspapers, magazines and medical journals as well as speeches delivered at conventions, symposia and public meetings in several countries,

   

• Research in School of Medicine Libraries,

   

• Personal meetings, correspondence and telephone and Internet conversations with prominent urologists and oncologists in the USA, Mexico, Spain, Denmark, and Japan ,

   

• Personal conversations with over 100 prostate cancer patients and their partners from the USA, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, and China,

   

• Incalculable number of pages posted by hundreds of doctors, patients, organizations and pharmaceutical companies from all over the world on that formidable communication wonder known as the Internet,

   

• Direct contacts with, and studies and pamphlets released by international organizations promoting cancer prevention, care and treatment,

   

• The experience of having the door virtually slammed in my face at the Department of Urology of one of the prime hospitals in Spain while asking for statistics –the head urologist on duty insisted, “We have to protect ourselves!”

   

• My own personal insights.