There is no easy way to receive the news that you have cancer, but it is important to realize that prostate cancer is typically not a death sentence. In fact the vast majority of men diagnosed with prostate cancer have the low-risk form of the disease, and will live a normal life span. Even those men diagnosed with the more aggressive kind of prostate cancer have effective treatment options available to them today.

In May 2011, the New England Journal of Medicine reported on 695 men from Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, average age 65, who were randomly allocated to either immediate surgery or delayed hormone therapy (DHT) between 1989 and 1999.  The median PSA for the 695 men was 13. Eighty percent of the men had palpable disease found during their digital rectal exam. In the men treated with DHT, hormone therapy was initiated if and when bone metastasis occurred. Bone scans were performed every other year.