Dennis Hopper, famed for his roles in movies such as Rebel Without a Cause, Easy Rider, and Blue Velvet was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and will be undergoing treatment at the University of Southern California.

The 73-year-old Hopper hasn't released much other information such as what treatment option he has decided upon.

The Movember Foundation is back at it again this year as it seeks to promote prostate and testicular cancer awareness by having thousands of men around the world grow moustaches throughout November.

For those of you who aren't familiar, "mo" is slang for moustache in Australia (from which the founders of the Movember Foundation hail).

The foundation was started in 2003 in Australia and has been active in the U.S. for the past 3 years. So far, they have raised nearly $50 million for prostate cancer research worldwide.

Kudos to the Movember Foundation for a fun, innovative, and effective campaign to raise awareness and money about male cancers!

Photo by Siri Stafford - Getty Images

The American Cancer Society (ACS) has been feeling some heat lately after its chief medical officer, Dr. Otis Brawley, told a New York Times reporter that the benefits of screening tests for breast, prostate, and other cancers had been "exaggerated".

Dr. Brawley's comments were given in regard to a recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article that raised doubts about the effectiveness of cancer screening. The ACS is in the middle of a revision of their collective statement regarding cancer screening tests.

Many people would be surprised to learn that, on many large questions within medicine, there is no strong consensus among doctors or even among all of the major medical organizations. For instance, the ACS, the American Urological Association (AUA), the American Medical Association (AMA), and several other groups that deal with prostate cancer do not completely agree on recommendations for prostate cancer screening.

You can read more about the pros and cons of prostate cancer screening here.

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, best known for musicals including Phantom of the Opera and Jesus Christ Superstar has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Through his spokespeople, he said that his cancer was found in its early stages. No further details about treatment plans for the English-born composer were released.

A recent study found that tall men have, on average, more aggressive and more advanced prostate cancers.

Researchers from NYU School of Medicine found that the tallest men, especially those over 6 feet 3 inches, had significantly higher rates of aggressive prostate cancer than did men of shorter stature. Overall, prostate cancer rates were equal among all height groups, but tall men had more aggressive cancers.

The researchers postulate that an underlying mechanism that results in greater height may also play a role in the development of aggressive prostate cancer, but mor research is needed to determine what this mechanism may be.

The virus known as XMRV, which has been discussed in this blog previously, has now been linked not only to prostate cancer, but also to chronic fatigue syndrome.

Scientists from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada have published the results of their work in the journal Science. They have found that people with a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome had vastly higher rates of XMRV in their blood than did people without chronic fatigue.

More research teams have recently been publishing their data regarding the link between certain viruses and increased risk of prostate cancer.

Just recently, German researchers noted that, at least among the German men that they studied, there was virtually no link between the xenotropic murine leukemia virus and prostate cancer. This is very different than what American scientists have found for American men as was discussed in this blog recently.

No one is quite sure what to make of this yet, but it's interesting that such a big difference exists between Europe and America in terms of the presence of this virus.

More research on this topic is pending and hopefully will shed some more light on the relationship between certain viruses and prostate cancer risk.

A new study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has raised concerns that minimally invasive surgery to remove the prostate may be associated with certain increased long term complications when compared to standard prostatectomy.

The study found that minimally invasive techniques, such as those used in laparoscopic or robot-assisted surgeries, were associated with fewer short term complications such as pneumonia, but had higher rates of long term complications such as incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

The study found that both minimally invasive and standard prostate surgeries resulted in the same rates of cancer control.

Currently, there is a broad trend in prostate surgery toward the use of minimally invasive techniques, but this study may curtail that somewhat.

General David Petraeus, the top American military commander for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was recently treated with radiation for prostate cancer that diagnosed in February of this year.

Petraeus was treated at Walter Reed Army Medical center for what was described as an early-stage prostate cancer.

The General chose not to disclose his diagnosis back in February because he considered it to be a personal matter that wouldn't adversely affect his military leadership role.

You might be surprised at just how prevalent prostate cancer is at any given age.

While prostate cancer is quite rare before the age of 40, it is not non-existent. Furthermore, as a man reaches his 80s or 90s, his chance of having prostate cancer (even if its not detected) may be over 50%.

Interested to see how common prostate cancer is at various stages in a man's life? Read more here.