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Top : Mens Health : Prostate Cancer

Learn About Prostate Cancer:

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in the United States. One in six American men will develop prostate cancer in the course of his lifetime. A little known fact is that a man is 33% more likely to develop prostate cancer than an American woman is to get breast cancer. A prostate tumour is a lump created by an abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells. It can either be malignant or benign. Cancerous tumours can grow through your prostate and spread to other parts of your body (through the bloodstream or the lymph system) where they may grow and form secondary tumours. This is called a metastasis. The outer part of the prostate is most likely to get a cancerous tumour.

What is the prostate? The prostate is a gland that produces the liquid part of semen. The prostate is about the size of a walnut and lies at the base of your bladder. The front of your prostate surrounds your urethra, the tube that carries urine from your bladder and out through your penis. Any change in the size or shape of the prostate can narrow this tube, making it difficult for you to urinate.

Causes of Prostate Cancer:

There are certain factors that make prostate cancer more likely which include:

• The risk of prostate cancer increases steadily with age. It is rare in men under 50
• Your risk is higher if you have close relatives who have had prostate cancer.
• If several women in your family have had breast cancer an inherited faulty gene may be present.
• If you are African-Caribbean or African-American you are at highest risk whereas if you are Asian, you are at lower risk.
• A high fat diet may increase your risk.

Symptoms of Prostate Cancer:

Prostate cancer often has no symptoms, particularly in the early stages. You are more likely to get symptoms if and when your cancer grows in the prostate gland and narrows the urethra. Those symptoms include:

• problems urinating
• a frequent or urgent need to pass urine or a need to get up several times in the night to urinate
• a feeling that your bladder is not completely empty
• pain when you orgasm
• sometimes blood in the urine

Treatment for Prostate Cancer:

Your treatment for prostate cancer will depend on a number of factors such as your age and whether the cancer has spread and if so, how far. Some types of treatments include:

• Active monitoring - Sometimes, particularly for slow-growing tumours, no treatment is the best course of action.
• Surgery - A common treatment for prostate cancer. It is most suitable for otherwise healthy men whose cancer has not spread beyond the prostate.
• Radiotherapy - uses radiation to destroy cancer cells.
• Brachytherapy - involves implanting radioactive seeds into, or next to, the tumour in your prostate.
• Hormone therapy - blocks the action of male sex hormones that help cancer grow. This can slow the growth and spread of prostate tumours but will not kill the cancer cells.