Urologist, author outlines prostate cancer book

In this video, Andrew L. Siegel, MD, discusses how he came to write the book “Prostate Cancer 20/20: A Practical Guide to Understanding Management Options for Patients and Their Families.” Siegel is a urologist in Maywood, New Jersey.

Transcription:

What prompted you to write "Prostate Cancer 20/20"?

Basically, I'm very into patient education. I always have been. I always like to leave patients with something in writing after an office visit. I've written something up on pretty much everything over the years. Prostate cancer I always found particularly challenging because we have limited time with patients. It started out as a kind of a brochure in the office 15 or 20 years ago, just a lot of information about prostate cancer for the newly diagnosed patient and their family, because, honestly, in 15, 20, 25 minutes, you can only express the bare skeleton of necessary information for them going forward. It started off with a little booklet. Patients liked it, and my partners started using it. I ran out of the booklets, and I did a secondary edition because so much in prostate cancer changes dynamically. I did that through a few iterations. Then it got to the point where it became more than a brochure. I said, "Why don't I write up an entire book about this?" That's what really motivated me. Also, it became clear to me that 1 deficit in patient education regarding prostate cancer was the minimization or neglect of discussion about potential side effects with treatment. So I wanted to make that a major part of this. The first part of the book is all about prostate cancer diagnosis and management. The second and third parts of the book are distinctly about potential complications - urinary and then sexual, that get a lot of short shrift in consultations. Nowadays, the complexity of potential management options have gotten increasingly difficult to express to patients. So I did the first edition of the book, and it worked out really well. I've got some companies to finance printing these up, so I was able to give them to newly diagnosed patients in the office and my partners as well. It's up on Amazon. And then my mentor, who is Alan Wein, MD, said, "You need to write a second edition." And he kind of pushed me into doing it. [This is] because so many changes had occurred over the 4-year interval between 2019 and 2023. I did a lot of radiation updates, advanced medical oncology updates, diagnostic updates - PSMA scanning, more MRI, genomics, genetics. I also added a couple of chapters that I thought were really important. One was surgery vs radiation, because that's the million-dollar question that everybody asked me when confronted with a newly diagnosed prostate cancer that's of sufficient grade to merit treatment and not active surveillance. I tried to cover that as best as possible. I had the help of some very good radiation oncologists and medical oncologists in writing those respective chapters. The other new chapter that I wrote was testosterone replacement therapy in men with prostate cancer, because it's a huge issue also. That was really my motivation.

This transcription was edited for clarity.