COLUMBUS - It's the second-most deadly cancer in men, next to lung cancer.

Medical officials say prostate cancer will kill 33,000 American men this year.

Columbus resident Ed Slizoski was facing the possibility of becoming a statistic when his doctor diagnosed him six years ago.

“I was on the road and he called me on Thursday and said, ‘I don’t want to break your spirits, but you have cancer,'" Slizoski said.

He said his father and uncle had the disease, and that he himself had already been having symptoms.

As it turned out, he said the cancer was on both sides of his prostate.

Surgeons removed the entire gland, and Slizoski said he started taking a PSA test every three months afterward.

"Then you got to wait and see if your PSA numbers are zero," he said.  "As the time rolled on, the numbers started creeping up.”

So he went to radiation oncologist Dr. Joan Keit at Columbus Cancer Care.

For patients who’ve already had their prostates removed, Columbus Cancer Care uses a PET CT scan.  It employs a radioisotope specifically for prostate cancer, and Dr. Keit said it can show cancers that are too small to see on a regular CT scan.

“If we can identify exactly where it is, we can push the radiation dose and improve their likelihood for cure," she said.  "We’ve seen that the cure rates have definitely gone up since we’ve started this new PET CT."

Slizoski had to go out of state for his PET CT scan, but Columbus Cancer Care said it now offers the service.

In Slizoski's case, the scan showed that the cancer had spread to one of his lymph nodes.

Dr. Keit said they treated it with tomotherapy.  She said it uses a shaping beam around a specific target, avoiding much of the surrounding tissues.

“The advantage to this kind of technology is that you can push your dose higher, have a higher likelihood of cure, but give less dose to the bladder, the rectum and the small intestine so you have less acute and long-term side effects,” she said.

Slizoski said his PSA number is zero today, but that he still gets tested every three months.

His cancer was caught a little late, and the surgery has left him with some side effects.

With September being Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, he had something to say to other men out there.

“I’m going to tell you like I tell my brothers, like I tell my friends: You having any issues, you don’t let it lie," he said.  "They say start at 50.  I probably should’ve been one that started earlier…maybe 45 would’ve been a better number.”