Formula One mogul Flavio Briatore is recovering from kidney cancer surgery. Originally announced that he had kidney stones, Briatore revealed in a magazine interview that he had kidney cancer surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his left kidney.

For the ex-boyfriend of Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, cancer has made life uncertain as to the direction he will choose to go in next, although Briatore, at 54, has made it clear cancer has transformed his priorities and his life.

Briatore says he must decide if he will continue as Renault's Formula One boss. "I am responsible for 900 people, who count on me. I do not want to let them down. But I also work for my own satisfaction and for results. For me, money will never decide my future."

Briatore is quoted as saying, "Fifteen percent of my existence was superfluous. Now I want to dedicate more time to those who really need it."

Hopefully this doesn't happen too often, but one hour after Observer sports writer Bill Elliott was diagnosed with prostate cancer, his wife Val was diagnosed with breast cancer. That a couple would both be diagnosed with cancer within an hour of each other is stunning, but equally stunning is the lack of sameness when it comes to cancer treatments in National Health Service priority funding and the tally in quality of life and human costs. Unfortunately, the difference in treatments appears to be common.

Colleague Health Editor Jo Revill, in Both have cancer. But why can't one get the best care? takes a look at the difference between the treatment Elliot will receive for his prostate cancer compared to the treatment Val will receive for her breast cancer.

According to Revill, breast cancer currently enjoys ten times more funding than prostate cancer. From very glamorous campaigns, such as Ralph Lauren's Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, supported by models such as Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen and Giselle Bundchen. She muses that pictures of men in underpants highlighting prostate cancer do not have quite the same appeal as sexy women in white T-shirts.

After a lumpectomy, Val was put on an expensive and successful chemoprevention drug to prevent breast cancer recurrence. 

However, for Bill, the options offered are limited. The treatment that his physician recommended that gives him the best odds of survival -- a brachytherapy -- was denied because of costs. Brachytherapy is a proven therapy where 100 radioactive seeds are implanted within the prostate gland in order to kill cancer cells through radiation. The alternative? Radical prostatectomy -- the surgical removal of the prostate with two major side effects -- impotence and incontinence.

Bill could pay privately for brachytherapy, but he wonders what happens for men who cannot afford the better treatment. You can read about Bill and Val's story in depth here. You can listen to Bill and Val talk about the outrage they feel over the inequities in cancer treatment as they speak with Jo Revill in an audio interview here.