Final Essay Prostate Cancer
Terry L. Miller
COM/156
Sunday June 1, 2014
Amanda Kosmus

Prostate Cancer Treatments, Breakthroughs, and Survival Rates

By: Terry L. Miller

It is almost a given that everybody knows somebody who has been diagnosed with Prostate

Cancer, or will be diagnosed with it sometime in the future. Being diagnosed with Prostate

Cancer is no longer considered a death sentence and does not have to keep one from living a

long life. What if one were told that a new treatment was available to totally wipe out the early

stages of Prostate Cancer? Would anyone believe it? Well they need to, because it is true and

under clinical trials here in the United States. “High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound” (HIFU) will

do just that. The (HIFU) treatment destroys cancer cells by heating them with highly focused

ultrasonic beams. “Sipuleucel-T” (Provenge), is a treatment vaccine that has also been proven

effective, and recently received FDA approval. These two treatments alone have advanced

Prostate Cancer treatments considerably.

In 1975, the yearly Prostate Cancer diagnosis rate for new cases was 94 out of every 1000,000 men.

The rate in which they died in the same year, was 31 men dying out of every 1000,000. Let us move

forward to the year of 2007. In 2007, the yearly Prostate Cancer rate for new cases was 166 out of every

100,000. Also in 2007, the rate of men that died after being diagnosed with Prostate Cancer was a lower

number than in 1975. At only 24 men dying out of every 1000,000 newly diagnosed cases. As the

research for this paper was underway, the realization was reached, that there are a lot of sites on the

internet, that do not have accurate information. Careful care was given to ensure that the most accurate,

and