Blood In Urine – Prostate Cancer Symptoms and Signs or Myth

Blood in the urine occurs as one of the relatively few symptoms of prostate cancer that are known. Early stage disease lacks any known warning signs, by the way; and it is only at this point that they start to appear. It doesn’t come first either – it is often precursored by increased urination at night, difficulty starting and sustaining a steady stream of urine, and painful urination. The actual occurrence of the bloody urine is an indication of disease progression, not occurrence.

In prostate cancer, blood in urine may signify that the cancerous cells in the infected organ are starting to migrate into the bloodstream and migrate through it to other regions of the body. This is a stage of the disease that is difficult to treat but in which hope may not be entirely lost. Hormonal therapy can still slow the progression of the disease down sufficiently for it to be treated with a combination brachytherapy and external beam radiation treatment.

However blood in the urine is a common problem referred to generally in the medical community as hematuria, sometimes the sign of a serious problem in the urinary tract, and at other times not really a serious problem and requires no treatment. This is why one needs to blow an alarm upon observing the blood, but instead he should proves to a medical expert for a thorough evaluation. Once this has been carried out a qualified healthcare provider then the way forward would be clear enough.

A trace amount of blood in urine is actually normal because average men typically excrete close to a million red blood cells in a single the urine each day if he has a healthy urinary tract. This amount of urine cannot be seen physically, so really it is no cause for alarm. An abnormal amount of blood in the urine can be acute or chronic, which may occur just once or several times. If a man has prostate cancer, the pain that accompanies it should be substantial. In addition, the patient is likely to see blood in his semen as well, which is a serious enough situation to cause the man to worry.

Certain treatments are meant to palliate advanced stage prostate cancer, which is generally what the blood in semen signifies. A man at a high risk of the disease should know well enough to get that medical test in a hurry. Although there are several screening tests that usually are done to determine if the man has prostate cancer, he may skip them all and head straight for the prostate biopsy. With an examination of the cells of his prostate gland under the miscroscope, they can know precisely how much to worry… and start to decide on treatments.

Cancer of The Prostrate Sign To Be Aware Of

There may be those who do not take prostate cancer too seriously but they are not likely to be Americans, because in the United States close to 300,000 men are diagnosed annually with the disease, and about 20,000 die every year either directly from the disease or from complications that stem from it. With statistics like that, it is not likely that anyone will want to ignore the warning signs of prostate cancer; and most especially not if they know that the indicators rarely appear early enough to treat and cure the disease.

But that is precisely it; deadly disease that it is, prostate cancer symptoms rarely appear early because the malignancy itself is a rather slow growing disease by and large When they do appear the indicators generally include frequent urination, increased urination at night, difficulty starting and maintaining a steady stream of urine, blood in the urine, and painful urination. Prostate cancer may also cause problems with sexual function and performance, such as difficulty achieving erection or painful ejaculation.

The forgoing are explained by the fact that the prostate gland surrounds the prostatic urethra, so that changes within the gland directly affect urinary function. The sexual problems also result from the fact that the vas deferens deposits seminal fluid into the prostatic urethra, and secretions from the prostate gland itself are included in semen content.

But it doesn’t end there: prostate cancer signs in the advanced stages occur if and when the cancer happens to spread to other parts of the body and cause additional symptoms. Bone pain is the most common such symptom, usually located in the lower back, ribs, or pelvis. Other bones that often get affected by this include the femur, the phalanges in the feet, and possibly even the skull. Such spread is often to the proximal part of the bone.

And just to prove that it can get worse, prostate cancer cells can metastasize to the inside of the spinal column as well, causing the cells to compress the soft milky whitish mass that is so critical to the central nervous system. Presto, the symptoms of that include weakness, usually in the leg, and loss of continence of the fecal and urinary types. There is talk that it also causes paralysis on the long run.

There isn’t much that can be done for someone with advanced prostate cancer, save to make him feel comfortable and perhaps prolong his life somewhat for whatever purpose.

Symptons of Prostrate Cancer – Do You Know All The Symptoms?

There are no early warning signs of the disease – at least if there are the professionals don’t know about them. Unfortunately that is when the disease is most treatable and curable: advanced stage disease is a problem in more ways than one. Later on, some symptoms typically do start to appear, though, and even though they may be somewhat late, the disease may still be curable.

When the symptoms of prostate cancer appear, they include pain in urine, difficulty starting and maintaining a stream of urine, and increased urination. By the way, the increased urination occurs at night, which may make it difficult to observe the blood in urine at first. However within a short while, the patient will see that one too – cause for concern, that.

It’s because of the location of the prostate gland – chestnut shaped, sitting just under the bladder and partially surrounding it. There is hardly a way that anything could affect the prostate gland without affecting urinary function in some way. The fact that the prostate also partially enwraps the urethra certainly does not make it that much easier; and the fact that the prostate produces some of the fluid that is ejaculated at sexual orgasm explains the blood in ejaculate, which signifies perhaps the extreme damage to the prostate.

Blood in semen often occurs when the cancerous tumor has started to break out of the prostate into the bloodstream and out into other locations around the body, something that really should never be allowed to happen. Other problems with sexual function and performance that result from prostate cancer may include painful intercourse, painful ejaculation, and erectile dysfunction (difficulty achieving an erection).

And those were all for when the disease was still nice – later stages of the disease tend to bring with them their own complications and indicators. The most common symptom of advanced stage prostate cancer is bone pain, signifying bone metastasis of the disease. The bone pain typically begins in the prostate region or pelvis, but soon it is out as far as the skull sometimes, getting through the backbone and the ribs in the process.

Advanced stage prostate cancer could do damage to the femur too, often causing proximal pain in the thigh bone. In some instances, the disease could progress such that the spreading cancerous cells start to compress the spinal cord, causing what some would refer to as the worst of the disease – leg weakness and perhaps paralysis, plus fecal and urinary incontinence.

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