Alonzo Mourning Had Surgery to Remove Prostate Following Cancer Diagnosis
Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning revealed on Monday that he recently had surgery to remove his prostate following a cancer diagnosis.
Mourning discussed his condition with ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. He was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer and underwent a procedure to remove his prostate in March. He said that testing revealed that the cancer didn't spread beyond his prostate capsule and that he is now cancer-free.
In his interview with Wojnarowski, Mourning advocated that at-risk men more than 45 years old undergo regular PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood tests to check for cancer.
"What scares me about this disease is that there are so many men walking around feeling great and have that cancer in them and they don't know it," Mourning said. "The only way to find out is to get their blood tested and get their PSA checked. There are 3.3 million men living in the U.S. with prostate cancer, and many don't even know it. I was one of those guys."
Per the American Cancer Society, the risk of prostate cancer rises with age. It's "rare" for men less than 40 years old to have prostate cancer, but the chance of having the disease "rises rapidly" after 50 years of age. Roughly six in 10 prostate cancer diagnoses take place in men older than 65, per the ACS.
