Alonzo Mourning said he had his prostate removed after cancer was discovered
Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning had surgery to remove his prostate after being diagnosed with stage 3 prostate cancer and is cancer-free after the March procedure
The thing that scares me about this disease is that a lot of men walk around feeling great, but they have cancer and they don’t know it,” Mourning told ESPN. “The only way to find out is to get their blood tested and get their PSA checked. There are 3.3 million men in the U.S. with prostate cancer, and a lot of them don’t even know it. I was one of those guys.”
“We live in a world where it’s taboo for men to talk about health issues. If I didn’t get regular checkups, I probably wouldn’t be here to talk about this. I want men to be proactive about their health.”
According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer type in men (after skin cancer) but it can often be treated successfully. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, but each man’s risk of getting prostate cancer can vary based on certain factors, such as age and race/ethnicity. Older men are more likely to develop prostate cancer, and black men of African descent and Caribbean men have a higher risk of prostate cancer than men of other races, according to the American Cancer Society.