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Riding the Rockies by Damon Phinney

The Lance Armstrong Foundation

Upfront
Joe Torre Recovering
From Prostate Cancer

March 28, 1999. Joe Torre, aged 58, manager of the New York Yankees baseball team, is recovering from surgery for prostate cancer. The cancer was discovered through routine annual tests including PSA test.
    The PSA (prostate specifice antigen) test was made part of the team's annual checkups after Darryl Strawberry was diagnosed with colon cancer last year and underwent treatment.
    Torre's surgery was described as routine and successful. Dr. William Catalona, the urologic surgeon who performed the 2½-hour operation at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, said surrounding tissue looked healthy and showed no sign of cancer. If so, Torre had organ confined disease and has every chance of a cure.
    "We just looked at it with the naked eye today, but everything looked very normal. No surprises," Catalona said March 19. No announcements have been made about how the tissue looked under the microscope. Catalona has performed more than 2,200 nerve-sparing prostatectomies. "He's in great physical condition" Catalona said about Torre. "I'm very optimistic he'll recover all normal functions."
Men's Health Calls it Wake Up Call
    Meanwhile Mike Lafavore, editor of Men's Health Magazine, said Torre's diagnosis "should be a wake up call to the millions of men in this country, especially baby boomers, who don't believe that this deadly disease can hit them."
     A nationwide survey conducted by Men's Health last June, Lafavore said, showed "just barely half of men aged 45 - 64 have been tested for prostate cancer, and only slightly more than one third of men aged 50 and over have had digital rectal exams to detect disease, despite their effectiveness."
     "In fact," Lafavore said, "only 18 percent of men are very concerned that they will even develop prostate cancer -- despite the fact that last year nearly 40,000 men died from prostate cancer."
     "Men need to know that real guys aren't afraid of being checked for diseases such as prostate or colon cancer," Lafavore said. Mr. Torre's announcement, he said, shows that "no matter how much success you may have achieved in life, the smartest step a man could take is to get regular health checks and tests."
Profile of Joe Torre

Men's Health