REED COWAN:
00:00:56
Former President Biden completed a round of radiation therapy last year to treat that aggressive form of prostate cancer. So let's talk about this because there were some news-making items there that may speak to your health decisions. Live now to Dr. Michael Herman. He's Director of Urology at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in New York. So, first of all, thank you so much for joining us on CBS News 24/7. You heard that, what the first lady had to say about that PSA test and age. Explain that for us. She says it was missed, the diagnosis. Yeah, thanks for having me. June is Men's Health Month, so this is a perfect time for us to start talking about these type of things and raise awareness. So PSA is a blood test that's used to screen for prostate cancer. So screening means that you're checking for cancer before it's had a chance to become symptomatic. And prostate cancer is very unique. Most cancers we think that if you don't catch it early, they're aggressive. They spread. They can kill people. A lot of prostate cancers are not that way. And so people can have prostate cancer for potentially a long time and have no symptoms. And it's one of those things that if prostate cancer-- if our treatments for prostate cancer didn't have any side effects, then there would be no debate at all. Find it all. Treat it all. Get rid of it all, and cure everyone. But for some people, the treatment can be worse than the disease because the treatments can include things like urinary incontinence, changes to the sexual function, changes to the rectal function, or if you have to lower the testosterone, that can have dramatic side effects as well. So for a lot of people, treating prostate cancer may be worse than the disease itself. And especially as men progress or as men get a little bit older, that trade-off might not be as apparent. So there is a little bit of-- oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, I was going to say mentioned people getting older as part of the conversation, but what about men who are younger? When should men start to get screened for prostate cancer? Yeah, that's a fantastic question. And again, June being Men's Health Month is when we should start talking about it. So it's very reasonable to get a baseline PSA in the 40s. The guidelines will say that starting at 50 is when you can get checked a little bit more regularly, but there are high-risk people who should get checked even earlier. So, for example, African-American men, especially if they're from the Caribbean descent, people who have a strong family history of prostate cancer, or even other cancers like breast cancer or ovarian cancer can raise the risk of prostate cancer. So for those men, we would definitely recommend in their 40s. Otherwise, in general, we [AUDIO OUT]. --really need that, at least for screening purposes anymore. Just doing a simple blood test called a PSA is all people really need to get checked. So there's really not a reason not to get screened for prostate cancer. All right, Dr. Michael Herman, thank you so much for the conversation. A lot of guys out there now know what to do.
