In 2016, the PCRI will celebrate its 20th anniversary.  The PCRI, founded in 1996 by Dr. Stephen Strum and I, was originally funded by a generous grant from the Daniel Freeman Medical Foundation.  This initial grant was spent on hiring Harry Pinchot, aka Helpline Harry. The helpline format adopted at the PCRI was modeled after the work of Lloyd Ney, the founder of PAACT.  PCRI’s helpline presently has four counselors: Jonathan Levy, Silvia Cooper, Bob Each and Charles Kokaska, all who provide unbiased prostate-cancer-related information, free of charge to the public.

The surprising finding, after 12 years, was that there was no difference in survival between surgery and watchful waiting in the Low-Risk or in the Intermediate-Risk group.  On the other hand, men who were in the High-Risk category did benefit with improved 12-year survival when treated with immediate surgery compared to the men with High-Risk disease who did watchful waiting.