5th post of this most recent context.

Incidentally, I've not included any illustrations of prostate cancer grading - only to ensure that I don't fall foul of copyright - these can easily be found by using your preferred search engine to find, say, 'Gleason grading of prostate cancer' and scroll down to 'Images'.

I've talked about Gleason 6 (3+3) and Gleason 7 (3+4), Groups 1 and 2 respectively, which are generally well differentiated cells. The former is clinically insignificant (it would probably be watched/monitored, rather than immediately treated) but the latter is (the first) of the clinically significant gradings, with more stroma/connective tissue, between the cells/glands.

I haven't referred to the numbers in brackets yet, but in essence these numbers reflect the smallness, uniformity, of the glands. Both of these, whilst positive for cancer, are relatively early grade (I may refer more to Staging at a later date, although if you look again to my first post in this context, where I've made reference to Sir Chris Hoy, you'll gather already that Stage 4 is when the primary cancer - in the prostate - has also spread to other tissues and become secondary cancer. Metastases to the bones is generally considered terminal).

If you do a search you'll pick up that a Gleason 7 (4+3 - NOTE it is still a Gleason 7 but the ordering has shifted from 3+4 to 4+3: the cancerous cells here are predominantly a higher Pattern 4 but there are also some lower Pattern 3's in the biopsy). This is a Group 3 cancer of the prostate. You'll see the uniformity of the cells is not so clear - there are in fact 'distinctly infiltrative margins' (this is how my OU module referred to it - the cells are predominantly undifferentiated).

There are three things then to think about with the classification of the grading of prostate cancer, the Gleason SCORE, the PATTERN of cells (from each core that is taken during the biopsy, a pattern is given, the first number represents the most frequently occurring pattern of cells in the core and to this is added the less frequently occurring pattern of cells - e.g.- (3 + 4)) and to this is added the GROUP (this is more up to date - but in my view it's unlikely that Gleason score will ever disappear from practice, it's too good). TOGETHER, these are all part of the GRADING.

On a Pathology report you might see the whole thing - GRADING - written like this: GROUP 2 GLEASON 7 (3+4), for example.

A Gleason 8 (4+4 or 3+5 or 5+3) are poorly differentiated with irregular masses of neoplastic glands. This is a Group 4 prostate cancer.

Neoplastic in the biological context: an abnormal mass of tissue. This came from the Greek for 'new formation'.

Gleason 9 and 10, each categorised as Group 5 prostate cancer, show only occasional gland formation. The cells are sometimes referred to as 'anaplastic'. These describe rapidly dividing cells with little or no resemblance to normal cells.

Next time: Evidence that supports the probability of at least some malignancy in the prostate by age range 70 to 80 (it's around 50%). This likelihood increases to approaching 70% at over 80 years of age - but many at that age will have had a less aggressive cancer, which may never need treatment. Another thing to bear in mind is that there are side effects to all treatments and whilst it is difficult to accept, one has to keep in mind average life expectancy (it can't last forever) and quality of life.

Many of us males (within the Harley fanbase) are in our 60's or even 70's now and that's why I've encouraged the male fanbase (those over 50 years of age - you see PSA tends to increase (slightly) naturally with age, even in the absence of disease and so even more reason to get tested) to seek a PSA serum blood test and a DRE. Each only take a few minutes...

Take care, stay your way,

It's coming up to the first anniversary of Steve's death and he (is) in my mind and I'm sure many of yours...

X

EDIT 23/06/25: in part or in full, associated (cancer) threads:


www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...who-s-that-girl.html


www.steveharley.com/forum/6-general-disc...harity.html?start=36


X

6th post of the most recent context:

I said I would provide a reference relating to probability of prostate cancer in older men. Here it is. It's a clearly written (only nine pages including approx. one and a half pages of references and it's open access, to download), my view is that it is intended for a wide audience, not just health sciences professionals.

Below it I'll also include a secondary reference - though the detail of this is under restricted access. A secondary reference is one that is included/referred to, in the primary reference material, in this case:

"Prostate Cancer in Elderly Men" by Stangelberger, A, Waldert, M, and Djavan, B. (2008). All three are MD's and worked either in Austria or Brussels. REVIEWS IN UROLOGY. VOL. 10 NO.2: 2008.

"...The current lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer is 16.7% (1 in 6 men). The probability of developing histological evidence of prostate cancer is even higher. Carter and colleagues showed that 50% of men between 70 and 80 years of age showed histological evidence of malignancy..."


Secondary reference:

Carter, H.B., Piantadosi, S.,Isaacs, J.T. Clinical evidence for and implications of the multistep development of prostate cancer. J Urol. 1997;158:1127-1130.

P.S. I've just watched and listened to the BBC News at One and learned that former F1 Team owner, TV presenter and businessman, the popular Eddie Jordan, has died earlier today at the age of 76 - of prostate cancer.

The nearest I got to (live) F1 was (I think) F2 (or F3) at Oulton Park in Cheshire in 1972, when I was 13 (with my brother and sister-in-law). Graham Hill (his son Damon won Eddie's first F1 Title, I believe) was there that day racing and we saw him crash out (not badly, he walked out of it). Sadly, three years later, he was in a fatal light aircraft crash with a number of others.

Condolences to Eddie's family and (many) friends.

Moving this back to the philosophical, a little like Steve's observation that only children can (effectively) live upon a timeless flight. Considering too Honeybadger's thread about... the impression of being relaxed (adjacent thread refers) and mixing these up with my own visit to and conversation with (a new - though at the same practice) my dentist, last week.

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel's album title - here - could be about several different things, all are relevant to the mind. When I was young, I couldn't escape from periodic anxiety, about a number of things - even mortality when that wasn't obviously immediately threatened.

Some anxiety is a good thing, in fact an evolutionary mechanism - a la Charles Darwin (1819-1882), a pre-requisite for survival. Sullivan (Harry Stack, 1892-1949) called 'Fear' an integrating tendency, but 'Anxiety' a disintegrating tendency. A clear way of explaining the same idea, Harry, I think.

Is a timeless flight a happy journey? Maybe being content in being able to do what you want to do. Maybe that's how Steve felt, four albums in?

(This next bit is 'down' to Y..., the person). Perhaps accepting that 'all this' is temporary, is one way of reducing anxiety? Personally, I could only get near this aim - now that I'm older - what a paradox heh!? He said something else, that really stuck with me. 'When you are conscious, keep your eyes open'. In other words, don't close your eyes when trying to avoid or reduce (disintegrating) anxiety.

Is a timeless flight temporary or continuous, or is it just not measured? Or is it that the measure of time - time that all are hungry for - doesn't always matter? Anyway, I'll be putting 'this' to the test soon, I may report back...Stay well, maintain your ego, feel well, feel happy. X

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (Harley, Steve 1974/1975)

EMI - EMC 3068

The track, the lyrics and (my own thoughts and partly guessed meanings - a personal view AND several questions)

I would agree with the opening line - I still remember seeing a total (beautiful) stranger in the Netherlands on my way to Austria (in 1983)...

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EDIT (07/08/25) Wait, 'Maids' could be about liberating Allied forces (1944/1945) being greeted by the female populace? Why had I not thought of this before, in the 50 years I have enjoyed the song!? Doubly, it could be about the Steve and Cockney Rebel fan base, greeting him/them, on their European tours?

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Is the second line fanciful or about another band? - I can't imagine Steve and Cockney Rebel being barred from anywhere...

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EDIT 07/08/25 Wait, '...barred from the shore' could be a direct reference to the D-Day (6 June 1944) Allied landings and the stiff Nazi defences barring the Allies intended liberation (?)

Definition of barred (Oxford Languages): "closed or secured with a long rigid piece of wood, metal, or similar material".

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I suspect that the next four lines are a dig at the critics...

The next two lines perhaps continue this theme but it is the second line of these that caught my mind, "No truth is in here, it's all fantasy' - that might still be about the critics or it might be about the pop and rock life - the effect of substances or the paranoia that can sometimes lead from it (?)

Within the next four lines Steve might have been writing for himself (following on) and he may be talking to his audience (maybe some of the changes within Cockney Rebel and the whole approach?)

Is the chorus referring to the potential (or belief - Steve was very confident) of a number one single (just a couple of months after recording the album of the same name as this song) and a Top 5 UK album?

The pop music charts were part of the banter of youth.

The first two of the following four lines express a certain awkwardness and shyness - the second have to be about Steve's physical legacy post polio.

I've no idea about the final two lines and four lines before the final chorus.


The original EMI deal for three albums all lyrically contained at least some reference to the health of the mind and emotional states (very topical, especially today and always relevant). I started this thread by reference to Freud and I'll finish it with a tie-in of the same. After all, the middle album in the deal was titled 'The Psychomodo':

" Thus we see that both in neurosis and psychosis there comes into consideration the question not only of a loss of reality but also of a substitute for reality". (Sigmund Freud, 1924)

"...Ah, but it's magic, it's the best years of our lives". (Steve Harley, 1975)

X

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EDIT 06/08/25

The track starts with an air raid siren (WWII). I've recalled reference I've made before to the 1946 film of the same name as Steve's song. The lines that I've previously indicated I have no idea about, might involve oblique references to the film.

Maybe Steve saw the film, as a boy? The film is written around three central US male servicemen from WWII.

By chance I've just watched 'Hiroshima' by the BBC (2005), narrated by the late John Hurt, for the second time - since it was first aired.

The last four line verse of the song might have been an indirect reference to the Japanese soldier's sense of honour - their initial no surrender stance and when that was relinquished following the surrender after Nagasaki, a number of senior military figures did "...die by the knife...", by their own hand. I am just guessing!

Associated thread (PART 3 therein refers):

www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...hat-s-in-a-name.html

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EDIT 07/08/25 Some of the older (now largely gone) generation, in the UK, paradoxically, referred to the war years, in some ways (again, this is the Freudian pleasure principle v the Freudian reality principle, in my view) as being, 'the best years of our lives...'

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That potential paradox won't have been lost on the poet and songwriter Harley.

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EPILOGUE: I realised over the weekend that I had immersed myself in a fair part of fantasy myself, back in 1975, but that might have also been the consequence of the natural developmental stages of my brain organ, dendritic growth and pruning etc. or to put it the way of one more contemporary songwriter and producer (Labrinth):

"I'm inside it,
The membrane eh,
Look what you created"

('from Treatment' by Labrinth, 2012. Released on Syco)

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EDIT 07/08/25: In the EPILOGUE I have referred to dendritic growth and pruning (this is of brain neurons). Besides this physiological developmental process of HOMO SAPIENS..

[STOP PRESS - can't remember where I placed it, thread wise, but I relatively recently said that we've been around 200,000 years as a species - this is now (again) out of date. The real answer is around 300,000 years, since our appearance on Earth. And the earliest finds are no longer in Eastern Africa but now North Western Africa - Morocco. This is covered by Human (2025) a BBC series (currently on their iPlayer), presented by Ella Al-Shamahi]

...WORKING IN CONJUNCTION with dendritic growth and pruning are changes in hormonal homeostasis and neurotransmitters. Currently (for me) it is changes in hormones (specifically, levels of testosterone and DHT, dihydrotestosterone) that is forming part of my current treatment - outlined in the PREAMBLE of another of my threads (that is again offering me a strong hope of continuing positivity):

www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...who-s-that-girl.html

Science, the natural world and art (and architecture) and music (this is a science too) and history are all, fascinating and the main thing...

x