This section will address diseases of the prostate, the pros and cons of aggressive screening for prostate cancer, and where prevention and genetics play a role in your health plan.

Prostate disease is far less understood than we would like to believe. We are having a particularly hard time in delineating the natural aging process from disease with this gland. The proportion of prostate cancers which are deadly is actually quite small. The reason prostate cancer is a major cancer is that it is so prevalent in aging males. The problem is we don't know with enough accuracy which cancers are deadly and which can be left alone. And nothing is more difficult for a patient who now knows he has prostate cancer than to "leave it alone".

For example, a very large proportion of elderly men die with prostate cancer that was never recognized. To have identified their disease years earlier would not have impacted their mortality, but would undoubtedly have adversely affected their quality of life and cost of their healthcare. They would have years of worry about the cancer and may have suffered side effects of medications, radiation, and surgery.

This section will provide links to current research and concepts relating to prostate disease and particularly the issues of proper management I have just outlined.