The Pentagon has revealed that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had to undergo serious complications following the removal of a prostate, underscoring how serious the ailment is among black men.
The Washington Post interviewed urologists who said Austin’s having received surgery supports the Pentagon’s contention that his prognosis is “excellent” because the procedure generally is not performed on people whose cancers have spread. Those patients, says Oliver Sartor, an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who can be operated upon are not going to have a chance of dying with the cancer itself.
The process can be done with the help of robotic instruments without making a big cut. He would then be shifted to an intensive care unit, where a tube would be inserted inside him for draining out his stomach. The Defense Secretary was diagnosed with cancer in December and had surgery to remove the prostate.
Experts not involved in caring for Austin said the case laid out by his medical team is consistent with what doctors watch for after the procedure. This may then be followed by a urine leak after the surgeons connect the bladder to the urethra once they remove the prostate. This condition if not treated may result in a lot of serious problems but is very rare.
If the doctors removed lymph nodes, that would be the cause of fluid build up, said Ross Krasnow, a urologic oncologist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Carrico used a tube through his nose to take the pressure off the bowels. In most cases, the problems can be fixed.
Secretary Austin is expected to have a full recovery with no lasting side effects from his surgery. Most of the men with early-stage cancer were surviving after 10 years regardless of how they are treated, but some cases are fatal and aggressive, experts say that screening tests don’t really differentiate whether men have the high-risk type of cancer When a lot of men have a chance to be actually treated for it, screening for prostrate cancer is important.
According to the statement released by the Pentagon, Black men are more likely to be diagnosed with the disease. As per Christopher Haiman, an epidemiologist at the University of Southern California studying the racial disparity of prostate cancer, genetic factors represent a prominent reason why men from African ancestry tend to be at higher risk. He said that if men could identify if through their genetics they were at higher risk it would serve them much better. When black men receive radiation for cancer often the treatment is not as efficacious he relayed to me as with white men. Black men are more likely to die because of their social status, not because of their race.