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Huge studies came out last week on the number-one cancer issue in men’s health. Women wrestle with breast cancer. Men: prostate.

It’s generally slow-growing. It can show up even among twenty-year-olds. And it can be an obsession for men over 50.

But how aggressive should we be in screening and treating? In cutting it out? The upside: it may save your life. The downside risk: incontinence and impotence, and expensive intervention that may not have been necessary.

This hour, On Point: The latest on prostate cancer, and whether the treatment is worse than the disease.

You can join the conversation. Have you been diagnosed with prostate cancer? Have you gone for the full treatment? Or hung back? What do you make of the new studies?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Berlin, Germany, is Dr. Gerald Andriole, chief urologic surgeon at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He led the U.S. study of 77,000 men published on March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine. A European study was also published in the NEJM last week.

Joining us from Cleveland, Ohio, is Dr. Stephen Jones, chairman of the department of regional urology at the Glickman Urological Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.

From Wilmington, N.C., we’re joined by Dr. Nortin Hadler, professor of medicine and microbiology & immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He is author of “Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America.”

Randy Pausch delivering his "Last Lecture." (Photo: Carnegie Mellon University)

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Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch seemed to walk on air. He had his dream job. A wonderful family. And when he learned that he had cancer and only months to live, he barely broke his stride.

He prepared to give his “last lecture,” titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” He talked about how brick walls were built for the “other people,” about mentors and loyalty and finding the good in others.

He became a media sensation, and the YouTube video reached millions. A bestselling book followed.

Pausch died last month. This hour, On Point: Randy Pausch and living your dreams.

You can join the conversation. Did you watch Randy Pausch’s last lecture? What did you take away from it? Share your thoughts.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

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Guests:

Joining us from Detroit, Michigan, is Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He wrote about Randy Pausch’s last lecture for the Journal and brought world-wide attention to the story. He’s the co-author, with Randy Pausch, of the new bestselling book, “The Last Lecture.”

Joining us from Pittsburgh is Dennis Cosgrove. A former student of Randy Pausch, he’s now carrying on Pausch’s legacy at Carnegie Mellon by heading up the design and implementation of Alice, educational software that teaches students programming in a 3D environment.

And with us from Pasadena, California, is Jon Snoddy. He’s an entertainment technology executive who founded the Disney Virtual Reality Studio to invent new forms of storytelling. He invited Randy Pausch into his group. Jon Snoddy’s current company, Bigstage, creates photo-realitistic avatars from digital photos.

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Links & multimedia:

The Online Legacy of Professor Pausch
The New York Times’ Tara Parker-Pope has compiled an excellent collection of links on Randy Pausch.

Watch the YouTube video of Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”:

Also from YouTube, you can watch a video of Pausch’s Congressional testimony last March on behalf of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network:

In their new movie, “The Bucket List,” when Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman’s characters get the news that they’re going to die, and soon, they set out to do it all — skydive, climb Everest, see the Pyramids, travel the world.

When high school chemistry teacher Bryan Cranston is given six months to live in AMC’s new series “Breaking Bad,” he opens a meth lab and tries to make his family rich, quick.

What would you do?

This hour, On Point: we talk with real people given months to live, about life when the clock is ticking loud, and their real-life “bucket lists.”

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Phillip Krone, 66 years-old political consultant. In 2005, he was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer. In 2006, came a diagnosis of liver cancer and was given six months to a year to live.

Kris Carr, 36 years-old documentary filmmaker and author of “Crazy Sexy Cancer.” In 2003, she was diagnosed with a rare stage four sarcoma for which there is no cure.

Judith Freedman, 59 years-old psychotherapist. In 2002, she was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and given 6-10 months to live.

For decades, breast cancer was seen as an affliction of affluent women in the industrialized West. And heaven knows it is that. In the U.S., one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

But the world’s most lethal form of cancer for women is not bound by borders these days. From South America to Asia to Africa, breast cancer incidence is rising along with development. Yet detection and treatment lag far behind.

Up next, On Point: from Cleveland to Kenya and Boston to Beijing, we’ll look at the astounding reach of — and response to — breast cancer.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Kathleen Kingsbury, a correspondent for Time magazine based in Shanghai and author of this week’s cover story, “Why Breast Cancer Is Spreading Around the World”

Dr. Richard Love, an oncologist, he’s the scientific director of the International Breast Cancer Research Foundation and senior investigator researching global cancer problems for the National Cancer Institute

Dr. Peggy Porter, head of the Breast Cancer Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Mary Onyango, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based advocacy group KenyaBreast, and herself a breast cancer survivor.