I assume most of you know this, but the Guinness Book of Records is a reference source commonly used in libraries to answer patron questions about
extremes.
I am sometimes asked, "When you were a librarian answering patron questions on the reference desk, what kind of questions would people ask?" Well, the answer is: all kinds of questions. But, yes, there were often patterns to the questions, and one of those patterns was "extremes": what is the largest, smallest, oldest, youngest, best, worse, most this, most that, thing. People seem to have an interest in extremes, both in their fellow people and in the world.
To answer such queries, one of the standard reference tools that we always kept handy at the reference desk was the above cited Guinness Book of Records (of course today we would not have the print copy but rather its website, bookmarked on the reference desk workstation) ready for use.
While websurfing recently I came across a reference to the Guinness book, so naturally it occurred to me at the time to wonder what, if any, prostate-related records might be in it. So I called up the site:
www.guinnessworldrecords.com/and searched "prostate."
Frankly, I was disappointed that there were only three records listed, and frankly not all that interesting (except maybe the one for the largest prostate ever removed). ("Breast cancer" had seventeen records, BTW).
But I thought I would post this anyway, as an example of how PCa is treated in one of the standard library reference tools. If interested, go to the link above, click on the "Search" box on the home page, and search "prostate" (or whatever else you want for that matter).
Also if you want, perhaps it would be fun to suggest prostate-related topics to be considered for inclusion in future Guinness editions. Such as:
Longest (or shortest) PCa surgery case
Youngest patient to ever be diagnosed
Longest surviving case of PCa
Etc., etc.
Which raises the question: what individual or group would be interested enough to take the time and trouble to research and answer such questions, and then submit them to the GBR? Retired librarians like me, possibly? (Naah, I've got too much else to do!). <grin>
But if you do happen to think of some other possible Guinness-style prostate records, it might be fun to suggest them. So let's hear them!
Who knows, perhaps some person or group actually will research and submit such facts to Guinness some day!