Growing up, I sometimes heard older family members talk about “the Good Old Days.” Compared to their memories of “simpler times,” they now felt challenged by the fast pace of increasing technological complexities. In fact, the arc of technological advances over the centuries is breathtaking! According to a Feb. 27, 2023 World Economic Forum piece, “It took 2.4 million years for our ancestors to control fire and use it for cooking, but 66 years to go from the first flight to humans landing on the moon.”

Many elders who were misty-eyed over days gone by found learning new technologies daunting—yet they adapted. For instance, a person who once relied on daily delivery of a newspaper to keep abreast of events around the world, and a pushbutton telephone to chat with friends, now had to become skilled at using apps on a smartphone to cover those bases and more. Still, many pined for the Good Old Days.

Awareness as a benefit of expanding technology

Nostalgia over days of yore is bittersweet. It can conjure happy memories, giving the illusion that times gone by were more lustrous than present times. However, wistful thinking can overshadow the incredible benefits of today’s technologies. In particular, I’m thinking of two advances that improve life for men at risk of, or diagnosed with, prostate cancer (PCa):

1. The first is multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) of the prostate. This advanced imaging has revolutionized PCa detection, diagnosis, and treatment. Relatively speaking, the Good Old Days in PCa were almost like Dark Ages compared to what we have now. Early detection, avoiding unnecessary biopsies, minimalist in-bore MRI targeted biopsies, image-guided ablation—and so much more—have opened options that our fathers and grandfathers never had. In other words, mpMRI has ushered in the Good New Days of PCa.
2. The second is the internet and social media, which is literally demolishing the “manly silence” around PCa. Unlike women who seem to be perfectly at ease sharing their health information with each other, a trait that led to grassroots breast cancer awareness and altered funding for research, men have typically been close-mouthed about their prostates with each other and even with their doctors. They were also generally uninformed. All that has changed. Our own patients use the internet to seek out high quality information on prostate cancer, and come to us already familiar with terms like stage, grade, PSA density, etc. They are aware that treatment choices should be tailored to their tumor, and they want to avoid the urinary and sexual risks of conventional whole gland treatments. Just as important, they subscribe to one or more PCa online forums where they can openly talk about their feelings and the impact of their disease on their relationships and quality of life. Again, when compared with the Good Old Days with their hush-hush repressions of communication, shared awareness and knowledge transforms doctor-patient discussions and leads to camaraderie and peer support. These too are part of the Good New Days in the world of PCa.

I doubt that any of today’s PCa patients harbor any wishful thinking for times past. Gone are the old PCa limitations. Instead of challenging complications, the ongoing research and innovations in our own times are actually making PCa diagnosis, treatment, and post-treatment quality of life simpler and better than ever.

NOTE: This content is solely for purposes of information and does not substitute for diagnostic or medical advice. Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing pelvic pain, or have any other health concerns or questions of a personal medical nature.