"How old were you when you were initially diagnosed with prostate cancer?"
I was 56 with a de-novo metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis, which is right in the middle of the typical age range for that type. The common, more-mild type typically manifests itself later in life. Some more-famous examples of the early-onset, aggressive type of prostate cancer:
- Musician Johnny Ramone (died age 55)
- Canadian politician Jack Layton (died age 61, just 2 years after initial diagnosis)
- Music and composer Frank Zappa (died age 52)
- Actor James Michael Tyler ("Gunther" on Friends, died age 59)
- Actor Gary Cooper (died age 60)
- Musician Dan Fogelberg (died age 56)
- Actor Bill Bixby (the Incredible Hulk, died age 59)
- Brazilian soccer star Marinho (died age 59)
Until very recently, this type of prostate cancer was considered unstoppable, and expected survival time was often short. It's just 5–10 years ago that that started to change, and now we suddenly have the hope of a longer life that was denied to those men (and the many thousands of non-famous ones in the same situation).
I was fortunate that I first heard about prostate cancer and PSA testing in the mid-90s when I came across articles similar to these (see attached).
It was then that I committed to getting annual PSA tests when I turned 45y (in 2000). So, exactly 1 week after my 45th birthday, I had my first PSA test (it was 1.3 ng/mL).
If it was going to happen, my goal was to catch prostate cancer early. About 12 years later (at 56y), I was diagnosed with low-grade, localized prostate cancer.
If I hadn’t seen those articles in the mid-1990s, not sure how I’d be doing today.