Prostate Support Group members, from left, Herman Campbell Sr., Louis Renaud and David Speyerer talk about their group. (MEREDITH SPENCER The Vicksburg Post)

[1/16/05]It could’ve been a regular potluck dinner. The room was filled with men, lots of backslapping and loud conversation.

Each man was a fighter and a survivor. Survivors of the No. 1 cancer in Warren County: prostate cancer.

The 40 members of the Prostate Support Group meet from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every month at the cafeteria of the River Region Medical Center’s west campus on North Frontage Road. Common topics at meetings include the latest advances in treatment or changes in Medicaid or Medicare law, said the group’s president, Gene Durman Jr.

Almost a third of all cancer diagnoses by River Region Medical Center doctors, or 126 men each year, are prostate cancer, said cancer registrar Kathy Cross.

Across the nation, prostate cancer is the second-most common type of cancer for men, behind skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

More than 70 percent of new cases are diagnosed in men over 65.

In 2004, 230,110 American men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, the organization’s statistics show. Of those, 3,390 were Mississippians. Prostate cancer killed 29,900 Americans, 440 in Mississippi, making it the second-most deadly cancer behind lung cancer.

The disease can be sneaky.

“You feel just as strong the day they discover it as the day before. The only difference is that you’re scared to death afterward,” David Speyerer said.

Speyerer, 75, had no symptoms and no family history of the disease when he was diagnosed in 1999 during a routine checkup.

Prostate cancer is usually a slow-growing cancer, so it is often discovered during routine examinations.

For men with no family history of cancer, annual screening should begin at 50. For men with a family history, screening should begin at 45.

The likelihood of getting the cancer increases with age, national statistics show. From birth to 39, the odds are 1 in 12,833. From 40 to 59, the ratio increases to 1 in 44. From 60 to 79, the odds are 1 in 7.

Screening usually involves a PSA test, which tests for the presence of a certain type of antigen in blood, and a digital rectal exam, said Vicksburg urologist David Fagan.

Getting men to the screening can be a challenge.

“Unlike women, men are less likely to come and have maintenance health care, but this is something they really need to pay attention to,” Fagan said.

Herman Campbell Sr., 60, said many black males believe those who don’t have a family history of prostate cancer can’t get the disease.

That idea, Campbell said, is a myth. He knows from personal experience he had no family history when he was diagnosed at 57.

Campbell said he had problems urinating before he took a PSA test at the annual screening event, sponsored in September at Pemberton Square mall by the support group.

“As African-American males, we don’t get our screening as often as we should,” Campbell said.

Several studies have shown that men of African or Scandinavian heritage have a higher likelihood of developing prostate cancer.

However, men of many different races and backgrounds were at the support group.

Those with a family history should be extra vigilant, Durman said. He was diagnosed after his father died from the disease five years ago.

“I didn’t have any symptoms,” Durman said.

Men aren’t the only ones who need to be involved in learning about the disease.

Keeping wives involved is critical, Durman said.

Most of the group’s 40 members attend with their wives.

“Once wives find more information, they help us stay on treatment. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what we’d do without them,” Durman said.