Why does prostate cancer only get 2-5% of funding breast cancer gets?

Another consideration is that many, many people get prostate and breast cancer, so pharmaceutical companies are willing to invest huge amounts of private-sector money into researching them: a drug like Apalutamide (Erleada), which I'm on, typically costs US $1–2+ billion in research and clinical trials to bring to market, but Janssen anticipates that they can sell enough of it to recoup their costs and make some profit.

That's not the case for rarer cancers, which is why (if anything) they need more public funding and donations, not less. Big pharma companies know they'd never get their billions back if they invested much in them. 😢

@vancouverislandhiker

Those numbers are disgusting. 🙁 I think they've come a long way in terms of dealing with mental illness. People are reaching out more but certainly we have a ways to go. I personally want everyone to be their happiest and hate to see stuff like this.

@northoftheborder Im fine with yoru perspective and opinions . Everyone should have one . My experience and research differs. Overall cancer mortality has decreased recently ( last 10 years )due to better prevention, screening, and treatment. However, the gender gap persists and is a statical constant , largely driven by higher rates of lung, colorectal, and prostate cancers in men, versus breast, colorectal and lung in women. We can leave it like that . Thanks for caring about the lost men !

Actually, it's not about how much money is spent - it's awareness.

Everyone knows about checking for lumps in a breast, but I'd never heard of PSA until it was a problem.
And all most guys know about prostate tests is a finger where they don't want it. So they avoid it.

All we want is a simple message of "Go get checked. It's just a blood test".
We don't even get that.

@dpayton D-pay , like you I like to see people very happy too . BUT , reality needs to be investigated and corrected , that means facing some very terrible numbers and situations. It is how society deals with its failures that determines its future success. And as you can see with men and boys in our culture we have a lot of work to do in changing the cultural milieu of the attitudes. Men are not toxic. That comes with the surprise to many of these days. Thanks for caring enough to write ! Good on you ! Be at peace and joy .

@dpayton I haven't watched (and won't watch) the video, but please be aware that there are people with political agendas who will exaggerate or misrepresent statistics for their own purposes.

Prostate cancer research is actually one of the best-funded of any cancer (in both Canada and the U.S.), but these people care only about exploiting us and our disease to score political points. We don't matter to them any more than accuracy does.

One indisputable point is that prostate cancer has become one of the very few cancers (along with some types of breast cancer) that's often survivable even at stage 4 now. That's partly a result of pharma companies' interest (lots of patients, so big potential market), and partly a result of the fact that research for both is extremely well funded compared to most other cancers. That's hard to argue with: I was diagnosed with stage 4 in 2021, but because of recent research discoveries, I'm still alive and in full (medically-induced) remission/N.E.D. heading into 2026, something that would have been unlikely 10-15 years ago.

Having cancer's never lucky, but if someone has to have some kind of stage-4 cancer, they're "lucky" if it's prostate cancer, because of all the treatment options we have thanks to decades of well-funded research.

@northoftheborder

Well said, North. It just makes sense if a cancer is as prevalent as prostate is, you'd focus on it and look for ways to prevent or help survive it. I think in general cancer studies have helped a LOT and I hope it continues until we have a cure. Even at G9(4+5) I feel positive about the future. I'm not going to give in and I'm going to be aggressive as heck to fight it.

Love all you guys!!
Doug

@dpayton Best of luck! Even with Gleason 9, you're way ahead of the game if they detect it before it leaves the prostate.

@peterj116 Agreed: awareness is important.

A generation or two ago, the public knew about prostate cancer screening mainly from the old comedy gag of a doctor snapping on a rubber glove and telling the patient to bend over. 😕

So regular prostate-cancer screening was well known enough in popular culture even back in the 1960s to get a laugh, but considered an unpleasant discussion topic except as the punchline of a raunchy joke.

I think we've made a lot of progress since then. Men are learning that it's ok to pay attention to and talk seriously about our bodies, just like women do about theirs.

@northoftheborder

Had RP 11/2023. First PSA was .46. Waited 6 months to do radiation as I was completely incontinent and the doc wanted to see if it’d get better. It didn’t. Ugh. lol.

Started ADT and radiation 11/2024. Both PSMA scans came back with nothing outside the prostate bed. Just got my last eligard shot. Last PSA was < .01 so it’s going well. Could it come back? Heck yeah but I’ll be ready!! Doug