The Importance of Prostate Exams

by John Cummins

Jerry Stubblefield, 62, is looking forward to spending time with his 2-year-old grandson in Dallas this year. But in 1999, the Mississippi construction company president wasn’t looking past the next few months.

Then 55, Stubblefield had gone to a clinic seeking treatment for a nagging knee injury and, while there, asked for a quick blood test to check his prostate gland, since it was time for his annual screening. The test results were suspicious, and a biopsy later confirmed that Stubblefield was in an early stage of prostate cancer.

“Catching it early enough, that’s the key,” says the cancer survivor, who was cured by a combination of radiation seed implants and radiation therapy.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in the United States. Yet a 2006 survey by the Prostate Cancer Foundation found almost a third of men don’t know the basic facts about the disease, which afflicts one in six American men.

The risk of developing prostate cancer increases with age, says Dr. William Hyman, an oncologist at the Tyler Cancer Center in Tyler, Texas. “If all men lived long enough, you’d probably find some prostate problems” arising, he says. Family history of the disease and race are factors as well, with African-American men 61 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer.

Fortunately, simple tests—specifically the Prostate Specific Antigen blood test and digital rectal exam—make a huge difference toward surviving one of the most treatable cancers. When caught early, the cure rate is more than 90 percent; so regular screening is key. The Prostate Cancer Foundation recommends annual screening beginning at age 50 for white and Hispanic males and beginning at age 45 for African-American men and males with multiple first-degree relatives who have had the disease.

For men diagnosed in later stages, new technologies are expanding treatment options. “There’s a lot of research going on. Anyone diagnosed with cancer should see if a clinical trial of new treatments is happening,” says Hyman, noting that 25 of the last 31 cancer therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration were tested initially at some of Texas Oncology’s 95 centers in Texas and New Mexico.

Visit www.prostatecancerfoundation.org for more information.

John Cummins is a writer in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

first appeared: 11/26/2006