EFN

According to reports, the world famous composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

A representative for Webber stated that he has started medical treatment for the cancer and that it was detected in an early stage, making the prognosis positive. He is likely to spend the rest of the year focusing on treatment and recovery.

There was no indication of what type of medical treatment Lloyd Webber has taken, surgery, radiation or other options – at the unidentified hospital where he was admitted Saturday evening.

Prostate cancer strikes approximately 35,000 men in the United Kingdom annually of those, more than 10,000, just over a third die as a result of the disease this year alone.

The disease is the most common cancer in British men, reporting for a quarter of all new cases.

Lloyd Webber, 61, is the Oscar-winning composer of hit musicals including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cats, Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. Rehearsals for his new musical, “Love Never Dies,” a continuation to “The Phantom of the Opera,” are to start in January, with performances scheduled to begin in London at the Adelphi Theater on Feb. 20, and on Broadway in November 2010.