Cancer Saved My Life by Stan Rosenfeld Chair, Patient Services Advocacy Committee, University of California, San Francisco (NAPSA)—I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997. I had been getting yearly PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests. Even though I had no symptoms, the PSA test came up positive. This is almost always the case when prostate cancer is caught If you’re a man over 50, ask your doctor about getting screened for prostate cancer. Give support to your partner to get screened. For more information, call 1-800-4-CANCER.It’s yourlife. @ early enough to be curable. I was treated successfully with surgery and radiation. Without the PSA test, my cancer almost assuredly would have gone to an advanced stage, beyond hopeof a cure. Before the PSA test came into use, men were more often coming to their physicians with symptoms, and therefore with ad- vanced prostate cancer. The death rate from prostate cancer has been falling steadily since the advent of the PSA test. For example, one of the Austrian states introduced PSA mass screening, reducing mortality from prostate cancer by 40 percent. I truly believe that without the PSA test I would probably not be here, sharing mycall to all men over 50 years of age to check with their doctors about getting an annual PSAtest. It’s your life. A message from the California Health Communication Partnership, supported by the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation. For more information, call 1-800-4-CANCER.
