succumbed to this disease—as have certainly many thousands of others.
In fact, as the second deadliest killer of Black men, prostate cancer exacts a far heavier toll on them than white men and men of any other culture, and the necessity of educating our men and their families about it, and all of its stages, is dire.
Simply stated, Black men have the highest prostate cancer incidence rate of any racial or ethnic group in the world.
The cancer is almost 60 percent higher in Blacks than in whites for unknown reasons, and Black men have a risk rate 74 percent higher than non-Hispanic white men—not to mention the highest risk of both developing this cancer and it being fatal.
Black men further are more likely to develop the more aggressive strains of prostate cancer, and our men’s prostate cancer death rates are more than twice those of every other racial and ethnic group in the U.S.
Prostate cancer is the most frequently occurring non-cutaneous cancer among men in this country, and it ranks only behind lung cancer among the leading causes of cancer-related deaths.
By years’ end, it is estimated that nearly 200,000 new cases of it will be diagnosed here, with almost 35,000 men dying from it.
Once diagnosed, a man’s treatment options and outlook are determined depending upon how extensively it has spread.
A numerical system called “staging” is how doctors assess the cancer’s status, its severity and how it’s affecting the gland.
Prostate cancer grows from within the prostate gland usually over many years, and given enough time it begins its spread to