The Mayor Has Cancer
May 10, 2000 -- New York's hard-driving Mayor Rudolph Giuliani faces a decision no one, Republican or Democrat, would envy. In late April, the mayor became one of the estimated 180,000-plus men who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year. The disease, which killed his father in 1981, is the leading cancer killer in men Giuliani's age -- 55 -- and older.
For Giuliani, there is good news: He's young, the cancer was caught early, and it appears to be confined to his prostate. And, like the one in every five American men who face prostate cancer in their lives, he has more treatment choices than ever before. For many years, the primary option was surgery to remove the prostate, which usually cut out the cancer but often left men impotent or incontinent. Today, while surgery remains the gold standard for many physicians, men have several new treatments to choose from.
Which of the multiple treatment options should Mayor Giuliani consider? Which offers him the best chances for complete recovery? Which would allow him to resume his normal whirlwind of activity?
The mayor has a lot on his mind: running America's second-largest city, a leading role in national Republican politics, and oh yes, that small matter of the Senate campaign. So we asked some leading national experts to tell us what they'd advise Mayor Giuliani and other men in his situation to do. Here's what they said.
One of Mayor Giuliani's options is a radical prostatectomy -- the surgical removal of his entire prostate. "If cancer is confined to the prostate, there is no better way to eliminate the cancer than total surgical removal of the prostate," Walsh tells WebMD.
But what about those side effects? Neither incontinence nor impotence is a particularly attractive prospect for any man. In the early 1980s, Walsh pioneered the "nerve-sparing" radical prostatectomy, which markedly improves a patient's chances of remaining both continent and potent after surgery. This approach removes the prostate while leaving intact one or both bundles of nerves that pass along the surface of the gland and are necessary to achieve an erection.
The Mayor Has Cancer
May 10, 2000 -- New York's hard-driving Mayor Rudolph Giuliani faces a decision no one, Republican or Democrat, would envy. In late April, the mayor became one of the estimated 180,000-plus men who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year. The disease, which killed his father in 1981, is the leading cancer killer in men Giuliani's age -- 55 -- and older.
For Giuliani, there is good news: He's young, the cancer was caught early, and it appears to be confined to his prostate. And, like the one in every five American men who face prostate cancer in their lives, he has more treatment choices than ever before. For many years, the primary option was surgery to remove the prostate, which usually cut out the cancer but often left men impotent or incontinent. Today, while surgery remains the gold standard for many physicians, men have several new treatments to choose from.
Which of the multiple treatment options should Mayor Giuliani consider? Which offers him the best chances for complete recovery? Which would allow him to resume his normal whirlwind of activity?
The mayor has a lot on his mind: running America's second-largest city, a leading role in national Republican politics, and oh yes, that small matter of the Senate campaign. So we asked some leading national experts to tell us what they'd advise Mayor Giuliani and other men in his situation to do. Here's what they said.
Patrick Walsh, MDDirector of the Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins University
One of Mayor Giuliani's options is a radical prostatectomy -- the surgical removal of his entire prostate. "If cancer is confined to the prostate, there is no better way to eliminate the cancer than total surgical removal of the prostate," Walsh tells WebMD.
But what about those side effects? Neither incontinence nor impotence is a particularly attractive prospect for any man. In the early 1980s, Walsh pioneered the "nerve-sparing" radical prostatectomy, which markedly improves a patient's chances of remaining both continent and potent after surgery. This approach removes the prostate while leaving intact one or both bundles of nerves that pass along the surface of the gland and are necessary to achieve an erection.
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