Baseball Hall of Fame’s Wade Boggs, 66, has prostate cancer, but the former third baseman isn’t backing down. Boggs posted on social media that, through the “strength and support of my family and my faith in God,” he has his sights set on defeating the disease with a “#positiveattitude.”
The Boston Red Sox icon took to the social platform X, formerly called Twitter, over the weekend to announce his diagnosis. Boggs said he has set a new goal for himself — ringing the ceremonial bell that announces a cancer patient’s successful treatment.
According to the American Association for Cancer Research, other than non-melanoma skin cancer, men are diagnosed with prostate cancer more often than any other form of the disease. It is also the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men, trailing only lung cancer.
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. An estimated 299,010 men will be diagnosed with the disease this year, leading to around 35,250 deaths. Approximately 12.5% of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, averaging 67 years old when diagnosed. African American men are at a higher risk of being diagnosed and likely at a younger age. Around 1 in 44 of all prostate cancer patients die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
“Prostate cancer can be a serious disease, but most men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not die from it,” according to the American Cancer Society. “In fact, more than 3.3 million men in the United States who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point are still alive today.”
“The prostate cancer death rate declined by about half from 1993 to 2013, most likely due to earlier detection and advances in treatment,” it reported. “In recent years, the death rate has stabilized, likely reflecting the rise in cancers being found at an advanced stage.”
Thanks to effective screening, the five-year survival rate of prostate cancer is 97.5%. For information on prostate screenings, visit the National Cancer Institute’s website.
Find more stories like this one on our Pulse Facebook page.
About the Author
