Andrew Lloyd Webber

28 Oct 2009

Yorkshire Cancer Research funded Scientist, Professor Norman Maitland from Yorks University comments:

"Prostate cancer does not discriminate - it affects men of all abilities and all races.  It is particularly sad when someone who is well known and talented, like Andrew Lloyd Webber, is revealed as suffering from this very common male cancer, but for every Andrew Lloyd Webber there are more than 32,000 other cases of prostate cancer diagnosed in the UK every year. 

The good news, according to the issued statement, was that in Lord Lloyd Webber's case the cancer was caught at an early stage and as such the treatment is likely to be effective.  There are many men who do not heed the warnings to seek early treatment and advice on prostate cancer and who leave it too long:- until the cancer has then spread and the treatment options are considerably more limited.  The only way to ensure that treatment is effective is to seek early advice and testing from a GP and then from a Urologist at the hospital. 

Such treatment is freely available to men of all ages on the National Health Service.  I commend Lord Lloyd Webber in being courageous enough to admit to developing prostate cancer.  There are many men who are also highly intelligent and talented who are not prepared to do so.  It is only by such advertising of the disease that the public awareness of prostate cancer in the male community will increase to match that of breast cancer and more latterly cervical cancer in the female population. 

Yorkshire Cancer Research has supported a programme of fundamental and translational research in prostate cancer for almost 20 years now at the University of York, leading to a fuller understanding of the disease.  We believe in the longer term that knowledge of the cellular and molecular basis of prostate cancer will lead to novel therapies to augment those already applied.  The key question which remains to be answered if prostate cancer is to be beaten, is the problem of cancer recurrence after treatment.  For some treatments this recurrence be as rapid as a few months or within 2 years after failure of hormone therapy.  With the increasing incidence of prostate cancer, it is absolutely vital that men are made aware of the benefits of early treatment but also that the YCR research supported to provide the new treatments for those who will inevitably slip through the net of early detection".