THE WASHINGTON POST – Over my 40 years as a physician-scientist, I’ve had the privilege of advising many patients facing serious medical diagnoses.
I’ve seen them go through the excruciating experience of waiting for the results of a critical blood test, biopsy or scan that could dramatically affect their future hopes and dreams.
But this time, I was the one lying in the PET scanner as it searched for possible evidence of spread of my aggressive prostate cancer. I spent those 30 minutes in quiet prayer.
If that cancer had already spread to my lymph nodes, bones, lungs or brain, it could still be treated — but it would no longer be curable.
Why am I going public about this cancer that many men are uncomfortable talking about?
“I feel compelled to tell this story openly. I hope it helps someone. I don’t want to waste time.”
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Because I want to lift the veil and share lifesaving information, and I want all men to benefit from the medical research to which I’ve devoted my career and that is now guiding my care.
Five years before that fateful PET scan, my doctor had noted a slow rise in my PSA, the blood test for prostate-specific antigen. To contribute to knowledge and receive expert care, I enrolled in a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health, the agency I led from 2009 through late 2021.
At first, there wasn’t much to worry about — targeted biopsies identified a slow-growing grade of prostate cancer that doesn’t require treatment and can be tracked via regular checkups, referred to as “active surveillance.”
This initial diagnosis was not particularly surprising. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the United States, and about 40 percent of men over age 65 — I’m 73 — have low-grade prostate cancer. Many of them never know it, and very few of them develop advanced disease …