Prostate Cancer, Statistics, and YOU!

 More than 12 million Americans have cancer and about two and a half million of them are men with prostate cancer. That’s a lot.

There are new drugs in the clinical trials chain that have the promise of prolonging life and quality of life. There are controversies about high costs of trials and drugs and the ongoing PSA wars (trust me, the final verdict on testing or not testing is not in). There are statistics about survival advantage, impotence, incontinence, harm vs. benefit, and on and on. It never ends (which is probably a good thing in the long run).

But for us two and a half million, it’s a very individual thing. I know a lot of guys with long term prostate cancer and no two of us are getting exactly the same treatments (unless we’re in a trial). It all depends on factors like age, overall physical condition, speed of cancer growth, resistance to certain drugs, allergies, tolerance of side effects, insurance coverage, and some things I probably have never heard of.

The bottom line (according to me anyway) is to focus on your needs, talk to and listen to your medical team, look for the things that might help you, and don’t expect a miracle cure just yet. 

Whatever the ‘statistics’ and the ‘experts’ say, you are not just a number—ok, you’re actually number one. Any given drug or treatment will either help (100% effective) or not help (0% effective) you. So don’t get caught up in all the numbers hype. All those statistics might not have anything to do with what’s best for you!

axman