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Robert Warren Hess
Business Owner | Organizational Collaboration Architect | Serial Entrepreneur | Best-Selling Author | Cancer Survivor Advocate | on LinkedIn @RobertWarrenHess
The Prostate Cancer Test That Saved My Life
Ben Stiller
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Thank you, Ben Stiller.

Ben, I want to thank you for writing this piece. Talking about a cancer diagnoses is difficult for everyone and I’m certain even more so for a public figure. But reading about a public figure dealing with cancer somehow makes it more real. At least it does for me. So, thank you!

Your diagnosis and treatment followed what I would call an ideal process. Both of your doctors took a very structured approach to identifying your prostate cancer and then determining with you the best course of treatment. Some prostate cancers need immediate treatment and some don’t. Your Gleason 3+4 indicated treatment.

There are potential side effects with all of the treatments for prostate cancer, but much of risk associated with surgery stems from the skill of the surgeon and the cancer’s stage at treatment.

For me and my cancer non-profit — Cancer Journeys Foundation, the challenge in beating prostate cancer is convincing men to take that simple annual PSA blood and personally track the results, looking for a rising trend. A rise of .75 or more should be checked with a physician.

Most doctors that support the use of the PSA test recommend having a conversation about testing at age 40. I believe that conversation and testing should begin at age 35, since the most aggressive prostate cancers tend to show up earlier.

At our annual prostate cancer awareness bicycle event two weeks ago in Virginia, I learned the story of a young man that died at age 28 of prostate cancer. Cancer at this young an age is unusual but it happens.

Of the roughly 240,000 men who are diagnosed with prostate each year, the American Cancer Society estimates that 10% will be early onset prostate cancer. It’s critical that those 24,000 men find their prostate cancer as early as possible. And the best tool, and the only affordable screening tool at present, is that simple PSA blood test.

My prostate cancer experience was very similar to yours, it just came a bit later at age 58.

After my diagnosis and treatment, I reviewed my medical records and plotted my PSA test results. What I saw was a slow, steady rise, and then a sharp uptick in the year prior to my diagnosis — Stage T2a, Gleason 3+3, multiple tumors on the top of the prostate where they could not be felt with a physical exam.

I was fortunate but almost 29,000 men every year aren’t. So, I designed and built a simple Internet tool for identifying rising PSA trends. The tool is called ProstateTracker and it’s free to all men.

Here’s how ProstateTracker works . . .

  • Create your free account at ProstateTracker [we do not ask for any personal information, so it’s anonymous]
  • Have a PSA test and input the test date and PSA number [if you have previous PSA test information, enter that information as well]
  • ProstateTracker then plots the PSA value on a graph, clearly showing any upward trend
  • ProstateTracker sends a reminder message 11 month after the previous PSA that a new test is due
  • If you see a rising trend, print the page and talk with your doctor.

It’s that easy to track your prostate cancer risk. It just takes a simple PSA blood test and a few minutes each year to input the data into ProstateTracker.

Men that may not want to take the test through their doctor’s office can get a PSA test directly from a local laboratory for just $35. This is incredibly cheap piece of mind. Information on how to find a local PSA testing lab is available at PSATest @ CancerJourneysFoundation.org.

Once again, Ben, thank you for telling your story. I hope it will encourage men to talk with their doctor’s and begin prostate cancer testing.