What would you do if you were diagnosed with a cancer that might not kill you if you just let it be? More importantly, what does your urologist say?

A system that comprises pipes, tanks and valves filters out your fluid wastes as urine. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using AI

Let me tell you about a curious cancer.

Half the men on the planet have it by the time they reach 70 or 80 and don’t know it. They don’t die by it, they die with it.

You can have it for years and feel fine. There is no accurate test for it.

Many will have a slow-growing kind that will mind its own business till you die. A smaller number will have a fast-growing, aggressive, lethal variety.

What would you do if your urologist called one day and said, “Your biopsy results are in. Are you by yourself or is there someone with you?”

I first got interested in the prostate gland because I have one. When you’re around 50, they’ll start screening for Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) as part of your routine work-up. If it’s elevated, the doctor may wonder whether all is well with your prostate gland. Is it inflamed? Is there an infection? Could it be a cancer?

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The second time I got interested in the prostate gland was........

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