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What was your age at Dx? (A look at how we break down, age-wise)

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Prostate Cancer
What is your age?
40-45 - 10.8% - 13 votes
46-50 - 13.3% - 16 votes
51-55 - 22.5% - 27 votes
56-60 - 25.8% - 31 votes
61-65 - 15.8% - 19 votes
66- - 11.7% - 14 votes
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Posted 12/20/2014 4:36 PM (GMT 0)
I was 53 at Dx, right in the middle of 81 Gray's curve!
Posted 12/20/2014 5:17 PM (GMT 0)
58 turned 59 three weeks after surgery. DX 5 months after taking early retirement from 35 years of teaching. Not the way I wanted to start retirement, but have been living the dream since--cancer free, zero incontinence, and zero ED. Feel very fortunate.

Tom
Posted 12/20/2014 6:43 PM (GMT 0)
Peter I think it's a microcosm effect thus a valid survey, my opinion only.

Cheers, Doug
Posted 12/20/2014 8:37 PM (GMT 0)
Had my 1st PSA test this year at 57. Previous doctor mentioned PSA but he did not recommend it. He felt the test was not good, resulted in false positives, unnecessary biopsy, etc. bla bla bla. So, this year when I switched my doctor he told me he wanted me to have a PSA test even though I had no family history or current symptoms. Therefore, my first test was positive for GS 7 (3+4) PC. I can only assume if I had been tested a few years earlier I would have been positive at that time as well.
Posted 12/20/2014 9:24 PM (GMT 0)
Scott, don't be too sure. My PSA 2 years ago was 2.2, but slow steady rise over 3 years. I was 62 at the time. Did a biopsy it was negative, except for 1 core hi grade PIN but no Cancer. 2 years later, Psa 4.3, and I have 3 cores G6, . It was def there two years ago in smaller amounts, in my opinion. Good Uro at Columbia Prysbeterian , and he still missed it.

Probably no harm done, in your case, and mine. If you did the test a year ago and they missed it, you might not have had the biopsy this year. Part of this is luck, sorry to say
Posted 12/20/2014 9:39 PM (GMT 0)

Pratoman said...
Scott, don't be too sure. My PSA 2 years ago was 2.2, but slow steady rise over 3 years. I was 62 at the time. Did a biopsy it was negative, except for 1 core hi grade PIN but no Cancer. 2 years later, Psa 4.3, and I have 3 cores G6, . It was def there two years ago in smaller amounts, in my opinion. Good Uro at Columbia Prysbeterian , and he still missed it.

Probably no harm done, in your case, and mine. If you did the test a year ago and they missed it, you might not have had the biopsy this year. Part of this is luck, sorry to say

Pman, if you'd like to see what a lengthy PSA history, biopsies, and more PSAs can lead to, read my initial story on the first G9 crew thread here. It's the first entry after the "crew roster" one.
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=2863652

You can do a lot and still end up with a difficult situation. Perhaps "luck", good or bad, does have something to do with it. Hard to tell:
Posted 12/21/2014 12:18 AM (GMT 0)
Diagnosis was two days after my first PSA - and the DRE. The biopsy later just confirmed what we already knew.
Posted 12/22/2014 8:59 PM (GMT 0)
maybe i'm being picky about your semantics, but i didn't like the way you said "how we break down" in your header/title. i assume you mean how we break down mathematically, but it makes me feel old and decrepit...
bob
Posted 12/22/2014 9:30 PM (GMT 0)
Just a thought, but before psa testing men were only diagnosed when they came down with symptoms. Usually at a later stage. So lets say these guys average age is 65. But these same guys probably would have been diagnosed in there 50's with psa testing. The term "old man disease" will become less prevalent as time goes on.
Posted 12/22/2014 9:39 PM (GMT 0)

toyoung said...
The term "old man disease" will become less prevalent as time goes on.

Old is a very relative term. I was 51 at DX. At my office I work with a lot folks in their 20's and 30's, and very few over 45. There I am the 'old man.' At my church, most of the men are in the 60s and older, there I am one of the 'younger' men.

yes, I spend a lot of time at church...

Andrew
Posted 12/22/2014 10:37 PM (GMT 0)
Hi All,

4 days post RALP and feeling much better.

As a Quality Engineer who deals with statistics, we must remember that we are almost certainly not a random sampling of the population of men with PC. We are the computer literate and are more likely to be higher educated and employed in a professional capacity. That said, there does seem to be a trend (as Walsh points out in the Book 3rd Edition) for earlier diagnosis and a trend towards diagnosis at T1 and T2 stages.

Best Regards, ScientificLifestyle (Pat)
Posted 12/22/2014 10:55 PM (GMT 0)
bsjoplin expressed some concerns above about the wording of "how we break down" in this thread's title.

Yeah, he makes a pretty good point. Obviously, my intent was to "break the numbers down," but for sure the wording could be interpreted otherwise.

Sorry, Bob, I'll keep a closer eye on my semantics in future posts.

yeah
Posted 12/23/2014 1:10 PM (GMT 0)
hey, 81, just pulling your chain...my family loves trying to see the alternate interpretations of this quirky English language...just for chuckles...
have a Blessed week
bob
Posted 12/23/2014 2:16 PM (GMT 0)
:-)
Posted 12/23/2014 2:53 PM (GMT 0)
60 at Dx
Posted 12/23/2014 6:49 PM (GMT 0)
I was 41 at my diagnosis.

The distribution of votes here on HW is not representative of the general population, for numerous reason. Here is the real distribution by age: seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/images/age_distribution/Age_Dist_New_Cases_Site_062_Sex_1.png

For a statistical/numeric view of Prostate cancer in the US, I really like this page at cancer.gov:
seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html.

-Gedman
Posted 12/23/2014 7:44 PM (GMT 0)
gedman -

Thanks for the clarification. Obviously, as has been pointed out by other posters, we here on this forum are a subset of this population, but our specific characteristics as a group (which are not those of the general population), such as better computer literacy, etc., skew our graph a bit toward the left. Interesting.
Posted 12/23/2014 8:37 PM (GMT 0)
I was 50 when I got the diagnosis, 49 when I started the process by getting a checkup.

I had no symptoms and if I hadn't decided to go for a physical (which included a psa test and dre) as I neared the milestone birthday I would have had to deal with much more serious issues than just a prostatectomy.
Posted 12/24/2014 2:13 PM (GMT 0)
Kind of surprising to see so many young ones in the voting as the overall statistics say the average age is 67.

I was 50...due to a 50 yr old physical and issues with urinating.
Father had bladder cancer at 75 and had successful surgery.
Sister had Breast cancer at 36, passed at 43.
aunt died of breast cancer in her late 40s

No prostate cancer from family tree except me...so was not considered high risk.
Posted 12/24/2014 9:39 PM (GMT 0)
I had just turned 67 at Dx.

Robert
Posted 12/24/2014 10:40 PM (GMT 0)
Dx at 71, now 78. You are right about the age distortion. Very few of my elderly friends use the internet.
Posted 12/25/2014 11:55 AM (GMT 0)
54 at DX
Posted 12/25/2014 2:56 PM (GMT 0)
69 at DX here, 71 now and feeling blessed. Merry CHRISTmas everyone.

Woody
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