Waiting for the Next Prostate Cancer Treatments

  

Will they come in time for my generation?

There are almost too many promising new prostate cancer treatments in clinical trials to count. A very few have been approved and many are in the clinical trials process. That’s great! I’ll drink to that!

Those of us who have been living with prostate cancer (or other cancers) for five, ten, or fifteen years can’t help but wonder how soon these new drugs will be available. And will they work for me? Everybody wants to live happily ever after. I sure do--whatever that means.

Of course, there will be a price to pay—drugs seem to be getting more and more expensive, there will be the ever-present side effects, and maybe we'll feel a little guilt that the new drugs weren’t there for previous generations.

Many diseases such as polio, AIDS, malaria, smallpox, and whooping cough have gone from fatal to curable or treatable in my lifetime. I have lost family and friends to some of them. Those people were born in the wrong century, wrong decade, or wrong place. And that will always be true.

If this sounds a little maudlin, I’m sorry. It’s just the way life is and the way science progresses. I believe there will  be more helpful treatments in my lifetime and I'm absolutely sure that by the time my kids and grandkids need a miracle cure there will be one for them. Keeping positive, believing there will be good outcomes, and living your bucket list seems a lot better than assuming the worst.

axman