Health Watch is a Public Service of the Office of News and Publications and is intended to provide general information only and should not replace the advice of a medical professional. You should contact your physician if you have questions about any of these topics.

With Father's Day fresh on our minds, it's a good time to talk about health issues for men. That will be our focus this week on Health Watch. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and it will affect one in six men at some point during their lifetime.

Men with a family history of prostate cancer have an even greater risk, and that's why Dr. Yair Lotan, a urologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, says it's important to talk to the men in your family about the disease. You need to know if any relatives have been affected, because your risk doubles if just one brother or your father has had it. The risk goes up five to eleven times if you have two or three close relatives who've been affected by prostate cancer. Men with a family history need to be especially vigilant about being screened for cancer.

Next: Recommended prostate cancer screenings.

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June 2006

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