The ABC's of Prostate Cancer : The Book That Could Save Your Life

Joseph Oesterling

1 Not the best at all and unnecessarily demoralizing in places
As the wife of a man just diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer, I found this book very disturbing because it seems to over-emphasize deaths and tragedies and not survivors in many places. For example, in the section on how prostate cancer impacts spouses and daughters, there were nine women's stories--five of whom had their men die of prostate cancer, two of whom had upsetting stories about advanced prostate cancer, and only two with men who had had locally confined prostate cancer and seemed to do alright. Since 13 percent of all men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and only 2-3 percent of all men die from it, this seemed to be a VERY VERY unbalanced treatment.

More than 80 percent of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer DO NOT DIE FROM it according to my reading--but in this book more than half of the examples of the men in the women's lives did die! I was looking for people who had gone through what I can expect to go through and instead read A LOT about a minority who suffered horribly ("The last five years have been a whirlwind of anger, fear, uncertainty, indifference, anxiety and depression" from one. "My future was wiped out . . . Loss of income, lonliness, no companion, no best friend, no lover. Long, lonely evenings, days, weekends. . . Widow" as the CONCLUDING words of another.) This was not helpful to me. And the acocunts from survivors were not in-depth enough on the whole, though I did really like seeing all their names and faces--that in itself was reassuring. But there was only a scant paragraph from Bob Dole, for example.

The book is graphically VERY well done but not as informative overall as the prostate cancer books by either Dr. Walsh of Johns Hopkins or Dr. Loo or Cornell. Both of those gave me more facts, understanding and a more realistic understanding. The ABC's of Prostate Cancer seems designed to have people take prostate cancer seriously and get tested--which I'm all for. It is not the best book for those with early disease to read or even more advanced disease in my opinion since the in-depth profiles are not representative of the frequency and ditribution of prostate survivors. There is also not enough on diet and new treatments.

2 The finest book in its class
The ABCs of Prostate Cancer is simply the finest book in its class. It elegantly and cleanly takes the most difficult concepts and clearly and simply lays them out. The use of graphic is the best I've encountered in a popular medicine book. Dr. Oesterling's devotion to his own father, who had prostate cancer, is remarkable. This gives any prostate cancer patient a sharp and clear edge with the best presentation of the most up to date material yet. Nice Job!