Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and Symptoms

Prostate cancer is usually a slowly progressing adenocarcinoma that produces no symptoms in the initial stages of the disease. But when the warning signs do eventually present themselves, they may include all or some of difficult or painful urination; frequent urination, especially at night; and blood in the urine or semen of the patient.

It is not uncommon to have a patient complain of pain in the lower back, pelvis, or upper thighs, an occurrence which generally is an indication that the prostate cancer isn’t any longer a prostate cancer, but metastatic disease cells that has spread to the ribs, pelvis, and other bones throughout the body.

The problem with the symptoms of prostate cancer is that they all actually could have other causes. For instance, an infection or prostate enlargement (BPH – benign prostate hypertrophy), may be the reason why urination is difficult and frequent and more painful; while regular bone pain may be caused by an injury or something. Considering that prostate enlargement is a natural result of the aging process, this is certainly not too farfetched. Therefore waiting for or diagnosing by symptoms may be a critical error.

Again, there are no early symptoms for prostate cancer, yet that is the time when the disease is most curable. Certainly it becomes most evident that actions have to be taken in order to detect and diagnose the disease early, so that early treatment can be accorded. To this end, most doctors perform screening tests during regular physical exams so as to identify prostate cancer early. These screening (diagnostic) tests include a digital rectal examination (DRE) and a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test.

During the DRE, the physician slips a gloved finger into the rectum to feel the size, shape, and firmness of the prostate; a prostate cancer will cause a nodule or some other prostate irregularity to be felt in this manner. The PSA test measures the level of the protein or enzyme in the blood of the patient. Men all have PSA in their blood, but prostate cancer cells overproduce it. There is cause for alarm when the PSA level hovers above 4.0ng/ml, although it does not conclude that there is prostate cancer. Other infections and disorders of the prostate often cause PSA spikes. Even certain drugs do as well.

Usually, only if the other tests warrant it is a biopsy of the prostate gland done to confirm or refute the prostate cancer diagnosis. The biopsy requires that a needle is inserted through the wall of the rectum to extract a tissue sample from the prostate; examined under a microscope for the presence of cancer cells, the biopsy will tell if the patient has prostate cancer or not.

Life After Prostrate Cancer Diagnosis

Right after a new prostate cancer diagnosis, you are bound to be looking at a few sudden decisions that you are going to have to make in a hurry. Depending on how widespread the disease is at the time it was detected, you may have to begin urgent treatment immediately, if you determine that treatment for the disease is what you need. Also, you may have to choose between the various courses of treatment that there are, especially when you consider that each one of them has its own respective chances of success, and yet it’s own risk of complications and side effects.

Sure, you will be looking at what life has to offer you after such earth shattering news, but you are smart enough to realize that earth never stops spinning, and life is going to go on with or without you. The most essential consideration in your decision then is how to ensure that you are still able to contribute to life, especially the lives of your loved once.

A prostate cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence these days; as a matter of fact, considering the fact that most patients are diagnosed still in the early stages of the disease when there is still a great deal of hope, prostate malignant tumor is essentially curable. Hormonal treatment, combined with some radiation therapy, and very likely some surgery, will deal with the cancerous tumor and offer you a chance of living another ten years totally cancer free, or the rest of your life even; however the catch is that there is hardly any remedy for the carcinoma that does not have a serious potential for these serious side effects.

One of the worst and most common consequences of prostate condition treatment is impotence. Although you might be able to feel penile sensation and even orgasm, you might have difficulty achieving an erection after you have been treated for the disease. Worse, you might also not be able to ejaculate, at least not as effectively. This therefore calls for action because a man who still desires to have sexual relations or even kids at this age (usually over fifty years old) may seriously feel impaired as a result.

Another risk of prostate type of cancer treatment, especially if you are undergoing radiotherapy is radiation proctitis. This often causes mild rectal bleeding and diarrhea. In addition, proctitis could result in fecal and urinary incontinence? until it wears off. When the harmful affects of radiation treatment wear off, so do the side effects, so you may just be in luck.

Again, being diagnosed with prostate cancer is not a death sentence, and even if you do end up impotent, there are still a lot of things you can do with your life. As a matter of fact, you should know that certain performance enhancing drugs still aid in restoring some degree of potency, and it just might be enough for what you need. That aside, it might be a good time to seal your relationships and ensure that what is left of your life counts for something good.

Diagnosis And Treatment Health Prostate Cancer – Early Screening

At the very best, one could argue that it is totally impossible to self diagnose for prostate cancer in the early stages of the disease, and the reason is pretty obvious ? there are no symptoms for early stage prostate type of cancer. Even when the symptoms do appear, they are synonymous with the various symptoms of aging that may even be construed as unreliable. At one time the disease was in fact considered to be a rare condition because of this very same fact.

For that reason, the various cancer study and research institutes in the United States, and even across the world, generally agree on one consensus ? that there is a need for carrying out to determine early on if a man has prostate disease or if he does not. If he does, it would be very helpful if the disease was diagnosed in the early stages because late stage disease is difficult to treat ? much less cure.

The most common screening test for prostate cancer is the PSA test. This requires the drawing of a small quantity of blood from the patient to be tested for the presence of a certain enzyme in the body known as the prostate specific antigen. If patient has prostate malignant tumor, he will have a higher blood PSA level than 4ng/ml, although the same may imply any number of other prostate disorders. A biopsy of the prostate gland will conclude the diagnostics either way.

But the PSA test is not often the first to be carried out: a digital rectal examination is often done first to determine if there might just be a tumor (or irregularity) in the prostate of the patient in question. During the DRE, the man bends over forward and the physician inserts a gloved finger into his rectum, much in the same way as colorectal cancer may be checked for. This way, the doctor feels the prostate for contours or tumors and will only proceed to the PSA test if he has reason to suspect that there might in fact be a tumor in there.

The definitive prostate cancer test is the biopsy which extracts tissue from the prostate gland to be examined underneath the microscope. More than just showing up mutated or abnormal cells in the tissue sample, the biopsy also helps to provide Gleason scores for the tumor, which aids in staging the disease and determining its level of aggression.

However because of the risk and invasiveness of the biopsy, other techniques for screening prostate disease are being explored. One such is a semen sample test, which has been suggested to be rather reliable although not yet confirmed; another is the study of protein patterns in the blood, which has not yet received much of a hearing either.

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