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 | Overview |
| | Prostate cancer is a disease that affects men from around the age of 45 years. It involves the prostate gland, which is a small gland about the size of a walnut, positioned just beneath the bladder, and is responsible for producing fluids that nourish and protect sperm. Since the urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder) passes through the centre of the prostate gland, any growth within the gland will cause pressure on the urethra, causing difficulties in passing urine. |
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| Causes |
| | It is still not entirely clear why some men develop prostate cancer and others do not. However, we do know that there are both genetic and environmental factors that can influence it. In terms of genetic factors, you have a higher risk of developing prostate cancer if your father or brother had prostate cancer, although the increased risk is relatively small. Perhaps more important are environmental factors such as diet and lifestyle. Vegetarians are half as likely to develop cancer as meat eaters. Scientists are currently investigating whether certain dietary factors may help to prevent prostate cancer. Much of this work is focussing on the mineral selenium and a substance from processed tomatoes called lycopene. Several very large studies have shown that both these agents lower the risk of developing prostate cancer. You cannot catch prostate cancer through sex, nor can you infect your partner with prostate cancer. Smoking is not linked to the occurrence of prostate cancer. Vasectomy was once thought to predispose men to prostate cancer but this is no longer considered to be the case.
Prostate cancer generally takes a long time to progress and it can take 10 years before it is detected. However, some men have a particularly aggressive form of the disease, and the disease can grow and spread more quickly. The cancer has a great tendency to grow on the outside edge of the prostate gland and can therefore easily break away from the gland itself. Once it does this, it tends to travel almost exclusively to the bones including the hip bones, lower spine and ribs. |
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| Symptoms |
| | If the prostate gland grows significantly for any reason, it can put pressure on the urethra, and this may cause various problems. Common symptoms include:. - frequent visits to the bathroom to pass urine (frequency)
- having to wake up regularly throughout the night to pass urine (nocturia)
- a sense of urgency in getting to the bathroom in time (urgency)
- hesitation before the urine begins to flow (hesitancy).
- pain while passing urine
- blood in the urine
- impotence (inability to sustain an erection)
- hip or lower back pain.
It is very important to emphasise that the presence of such symptoms does not necessarily mean you have prostate cancer. Indeed, any problem with the prostate will generally lead to some of these symptoms, which can include prostatitis - a prostate infection - or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) - a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate gland. However, if you do have any of these symptoms, please consult your doctor since the earlier they are treated the better. Equally important to emphasise is that many men, especially those in the early stages of the disease, do not develop symptoms at all. Therefore, a lack of symptoms does not always mean that you are free from the disease, and further tests will be needed to confirm this. |
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| Risk Factors |
| | Men at higher risk include black men older than 60, farmers, tire plant workers, painters, and men exposed to cadmium. Prostate cancers are classified or staged based on their aggressiveness and how different they are from the surrounding prostate tissue. There are several different ways to stage tumors, a common one being the A-B-C-D staging system, also known as the Whitmore-Jewett system: A: Tumor is not palpable (not felt on physical examination), and is usually detected by accident after prostate surgery done for other reasons.
B: Tumor is confined to the prostate and usually detected by physical examination or PSA testing.
C: Tumor extends beyond the prostate capsule without spread to lymph nodes.
D: Cancer has spread (metastasized) to regional lymph nodes or other parts of the body (bone and lungs, for example). This system also contains several substages. |
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