Overview

An educational vehicle for the patient-to-be (that is, all men age 35-40+) as well as for the man already diagnosed with prostate cancer...and for his wife or partner. The purpose: to induce men to assume a more active and aggressive responsibility for monitoring their own prostate health. After the Chronology of Events related to prostate cancer discoveries and treatments throughout history, Dr. Vilas discusses multiples statistics that enlighten men on how to approach and what to expect from their medical care specialists and HMOs, and how to keep their own medical records. Then, he identifies symptoms, from urinary difficulties (frequency, intermittency, urgency, weak-stream, dribbling, disuria, etc.) to sexual dysfunction; he explains positive tests indicative of cancer and then he details the main treatments available, from "Doing Nothing" to hormonal therapy to surgery to radiation and to the latest development, the daVinci Robotic Radical Prostatectomy. Statistical explanations of PSA tests, biopsy, and staging of the cancer give the reader a wide spectrum of knowledge to be able to interpret tests and doctors' reports; the man learns when and how to request which tests and why. In the U.S.A. alone, 234,460 new cases of prostate cancer are being diagnosed in 2006, and 27,350 more men will die from this disease. Yet most men have no knowledge, or very limited, of prostate misbehavior. Additionally, many men, when diagnosed, complain that they do not receive enough information from their medical professionals and that they cannot respond intelligently when asked to make treatment decisions -as asserted by the over 100 patients from seven countries personally interviewed by the author.