Prostate Cancer
Making Survival Decisions
9780226568577
Prostate Cancer
Making Survival Decisions
Written by a surviving prostate cancer patient and his urologist, Prostate Cancer: Making Survival Decisions provides not just a physician’s overview of the disease, but the compassion, understanding, and frankness of a man who’s lived through the experience. From the first symptoms to early diagnosis to life after treatment, journalist Sylvan Meyer details every facet of the disease from the patient’s point of view. Along with a clear, complete guide to the latest treatments, techniques, and findings, Meyer outlines the tough decisions the patient will face; describes what it’s like to go through all the tests, the treatment, and the recovery; and provides an understanding of how the patient himself can affect the outcome.
Thoroughly researched and imbued with great sensitivity, Prostate Cancer: Making Survival Decisions is the most informative and illuminating book about prostate cancer available. Not just an indispensable tool for those who have been diagnosed or are at risk, this is an important guide for anyone who seeks a better understanding of this enigmatic disease and the controversies surrounding it.
Thoroughly researched and imbued with great sensitivity, Prostate Cancer: Making Survival Decisions is the most informative and illuminating book about prostate cancer available. Not just an indispensable tool for those who have been diagnosed or are at risk, this is an important guide for anyone who seeks a better understanding of this enigmatic disease and the controversies surrounding it.
Table of Contents
Memo from Sylvan Meyer
Introduction: How I Got into All This
Acknowledgments
1: Up in the Air to Ponder: What Could This Thing Be?
2: BPH and Other Nonmalignant Problems: Maybe It’s Just That We’re Getting Older
3: Here Comes the Finger: Doctor’s Suspicions Aroused
4: When the Two-by-Four Hits You: The Symptoms, If Any at All
5: What the Exams Are Like: Meet the Searching Machines
6: A Pigeonhole Just for You: What It Means to Be Graded and Staged
7: Just How Sick Are You? Understanding the PSA, Gleason Grades, and Such
8: Treatment Options: They Want YOU to Decide!
9: The Ray Gun or the Knife: You’re the Prize in This Ongoing Debate
10: The Turrible TURP: What It’s Like to Go through the Operation
11: Patient Meets the Ray Gun: Will I Glow in the Dark?
12: They Can Plant "Seeds" in You: Laying Radioactivity Directly on the Tumor
13: Cryosurgery: Very Deep Freeze for the Cancerous Prostate
14: The Radical Prostatectomy: Get That Problem Out of There!
15: Hormonal Ablation: Blocking Your Androgens with Surgery or Drugs
16: Advanced (C & D) Cancers: Serious Business, but Treatable
17: Recurrent and Residual Cancers: What If It Comes Back on Me?
18: Potency: Will I Ever Get It Up Again?
19: Direct from the Doc: The Important Questions for You to Ask Your Doctor
20: The Time Bomb Itself: Where and What Is the Prostate and What Does It Do?
21: The Track of the Sperm: A Thirteen-Week Journey
22: What Causes This Cancer? Is It Something We Eat? Or Where We Work?
23: The Numbers: Can We Depend on Them? Maybe Statistics Hide the Answers
24: Reference: The TNM Staging System, and Some Others
25: The Doctor’s TURP Strategy: What’s on His Mind While He’s "In There"?
26: The PSA Revolution: How PSA and Ultrasound Changed the Landscape
27: You Must Decide: Radiation vs. Radical
28: Know More about External Beam: Survival Times by Stage
29: Materials for Hot "Seeds": And How Well They Work
30: Further Hormonal Manipulation: Not Easy to Turn Off Testosterone
31: The Son of Cancer 1: Again, Your Decision May Rule
32: The Great Screening Debate: Are We Finding Too Many Victims?
33: A Look at the Future: So, What Else Is New?
Epilogue, May 1994: A Little Catching-Up Time
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction: How I Got into All This
Acknowledgments
1: Up in the Air to Ponder: What Could This Thing Be?
2: BPH and Other Nonmalignant Problems: Maybe It’s Just That We’re Getting Older
3: Here Comes the Finger: Doctor’s Suspicions Aroused
4: When the Two-by-Four Hits You: The Symptoms, If Any at All
5: What the Exams Are Like: Meet the Searching Machines
6: A Pigeonhole Just for You: What It Means to Be Graded and Staged
7: Just How Sick Are You? Understanding the PSA, Gleason Grades, and Such
8: Treatment Options: They Want YOU to Decide!
9: The Ray Gun or the Knife: You’re the Prize in This Ongoing Debate
10: The Turrible TURP: What It’s Like to Go through the Operation
11: Patient Meets the Ray Gun: Will I Glow in the Dark?
12: They Can Plant "Seeds" in You: Laying Radioactivity Directly on the Tumor
13: Cryosurgery: Very Deep Freeze for the Cancerous Prostate
14: The Radical Prostatectomy: Get That Problem Out of There!
15: Hormonal Ablation: Blocking Your Androgens with Surgery or Drugs
16: Advanced (C & D) Cancers: Serious Business, but Treatable
17: Recurrent and Residual Cancers: What If It Comes Back on Me?
18: Potency: Will I Ever Get It Up Again?
19: Direct from the Doc: The Important Questions for You to Ask Your Doctor
20: The Time Bomb Itself: Where and What Is the Prostate and What Does It Do?
21: The Track of the Sperm: A Thirteen-Week Journey
22: What Causes This Cancer? Is It Something We Eat? Or Where We Work?
23: The Numbers: Can We Depend on Them? Maybe Statistics Hide the Answers
24: Reference: The TNM Staging System, and Some Others
25: The Doctor’s TURP Strategy: What’s on His Mind While He’s "In There"?
26: The PSA Revolution: How PSA and Ultrasound Changed the Landscape
27: You Must Decide: Radiation vs. Radical
28: Know More about External Beam: Survival Times by Stage
29: Materials for Hot "Seeds": And How Well They Work
30: Further Hormonal Manipulation: Not Easy to Turn Off Testosterone
31: The Son of Cancer 1: Again, Your Decision May Rule
32: The Great Screening Debate: Are We Finding Too Many Victims?
33: A Look at the Future: So, What Else Is New?
Epilogue, May 1994: A Little Catching-Up Time
Notes
Bibliography
Index