Symptoms and Treatments

Introduction to Prostate Cancer

The prostate is a gland and cancers developing in glands are called adenocarcinoma. Hence, prostate cancers are medically known as prostatic adenocarcinomas.

The prostate gland is about 3 cm long or slightly an inch long situated at the neck of the bladder fronting the rectum and surrounds the urethra which is the passage way for sperm and urine out into the penis. It is the one gland that produces the viscous milk fluid called the semen that carries the sperm from the testes at the point of ejaculation.

Causes and Risk Factors

The prostate gland is unique to men; hence prostate cancer can only happen in men. In the US, prostate cancer is second only to lung cancer as the most common malignant cancer in men. The risk of developing one is calculated to be 17.6% among whites and 20.6% among African Americans while the risk of death from prostate cancers is 2.8% and 4.7%, respectively.

The roots of prostate cancer are unknown but they are reasonably suspected to have environmental, dietary, genetic and hormonal triggers that can cause the prostate’s glandular cells to become tumorous. The following risk factors have been identified.

• Age: There is a significant correlation between advancing age and prostate cancer with a steady rise les than once chance in 100,000 for men in their 40s to 1,146 chances in 100,000 men in their 80s.

• Race: Blacks have 1.6 times more likelihood of developing prostate cancer than white Americans. They are likely to die 2.4 times more than white Americans who have the cancer.

• Genetic: Men with a history of prostate cancer in their family, in particular, those with first degree relative like a father, mother or brother who suffered one, are at a higher risk, typically 2-3 times higher than those without a family history of the cancer.

• Infection: Sexually transmitted diseases have a causal link to prostate cancer as men who had contracted STD in the past have 1.4 times more risk of developing the cancer compared to the general population.

• Chemicals: Exposure to cadmium has been implicated in prostate cancers.

• Diet: A high fat diet has been linked to increased risk of prostate cancer. Obese patients are shown to produce aggressive larger prostate cancers with poorer prognosis after treatment.

Symptoms of Prostate Cancer

Early onset of prostate cancer produces no symptoms. But when the tumor starts to enlarge to cause the blockage at the urethra or bladder neck, usually in the advance stages of the cancer, then you can expect difficulty in starting and stopping the urine stream with increased urination frequency and pain while passing urine. The urine retention may be diminished and even after urination, the sensation of a full bladder remains.

As the cancer further worsens, bladder function can start to deteriorate and urinary tract infections can set in. But these symptoms need not point to prostate cancer as prostatic enlargement can happen that are non-cancerous but produce the same symptoms.

Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

Because there are no symptoms in the early stages of prostate cancer, treatment can only start during the later more advance stage when the cancer has reached metastatic conditions. More often, a regular medical exam will reveal one.

• A regular blood test that reveals high serum prostate specific antigen (S. PSA) will prompt your doctor to have prostate biopsy and only then will it be diagnosed.

• Sometimes, the diagnosis is fortuitous as when a digital rectal exam done as part of a routine medical check up discovers a hard formation on the prostate.

Prostate Cancer Treatment

A number of treatment options are available often contingent on the age of the patient and with high success rates.

• One option commonly adopted is simply watchful waiting which requires regular PSA tests to monitor prostate cancer growth which can be quite slow and can sometimes regress without treatment.

• Once growth is detected, there’s prostatectomy which is a major surgery to remove the tumorous section of the gland or its entirety as well as the usual radiation therapy for cancer.

• A more innovative radiation therapy is brachytherapy where a radioactive pellet is surgically implanted into the prostate radiating the cancerous area that can last for weeks or months and just left in place once done.

• Hormonal therapy is also done to reduce testosterone which stimulates prostate cancer growth. Medical castration or orchiectomy is often the best way to stop testosterone stimulation of the prostate tumor.

• Chemotherapy is the last resort in treating prostate cancer.