Who is Prostate Cancer?
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He can be any man.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men after lung cancer, affecting one in six men in the U.S.
He is rarely under the age of 40, usually over 50 and in fact two-thirds of all cases are diagnosed in men over 65.
60 to 61% of the time he is an African American male.
He is twice as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer if he has/had a father or brother with the disease. There is also an inherited gene for prostate cancer, affecting 5 to 10 % of all diagnosed cases. While research into genetic testing is promising, it is not yet available.
For more information on who is prostate cancer see the Prostate Cancer Foundation site.
The Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada offers a risk assessment quiz on their website.
Symptoms:
For information on early symptoms of prostate cancer please refer to Adrian Jones’ excellent post on this site.
Screening:
Men in the high risk category should begin screening at age 40. Routine screening should begin at age 50.
Screening will begin with,
Digital Rectal Exam-part of a regular yearly physical to exam the gland for changes.
PSA-Prostate Specific Antigen blood test-higher than normal levels may indicate a problem.
And may proceed to the following if your DRE and PSA indicate the need.
Ultrasound-A small probe inserted into the rectum will take pictures of the gland using sound waves.
Biopsy-Tissue samples examined by a pathologist for cancerous cells, also determines the staging of a cancer diagnosis.
The Mayo Clinic recommends a diet low in fat and rich in lycopene (the antioxidant in tomatoes), and regular exercise. They also suggest discussing the use of NSAIDs with your physician.
Treatment:
Treatment may include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
The Prostate Calculator offers disease forecasts based on real patients and artificial intelligence
Resources for treatment include:
The Prostate Cancer Foundation
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EXCELLENT points. Thank you very much for sharing this. And I WILL read the book. It is available on Amazon.
Should I Be Tested for Cancer?: Maybe Not and Here’s Why by H. Gilbert Welch M.D. M.P.H.
ISBN-10: 0520248368
If a GP doctor asks you to get a PSA test and it comes back higher than 4 he or she will be legally liable to send you to a urologist. The urologist has no national double blind testing results to tell you if any of his testing or procedures will make you live longer but he is also legally liable to request more tests. Ask him or her to prove to you that their test or procedures have made people live longer by their practice. Also ask them how many tests at what financial cost does it take to prove you will not die from prostate cancer. Ask him if his/her ethics are challenged by his or her conscience about liability exposure. In other words would they give the same testing and procedure advice to a relative or friend. Prostate cancer mortality is stable and has been for years. Detecting prostate cancer early saves some people by luck, drives others insane from fear, creates no common standards for doctors to act scientifically or morally. Live your life with quality and die when you want to. It’s your right. Come to Oregon and join us in taking back your life and death with dignity. Read Dr. Gilbert Welches book “Should I tested for Cancer?” I did and took back control of my life after 2 and one half years of expensive inconclusive testing. I sleep very well now. I know that I will die sometime. It’s my right that I not know when or why unless I want to.
LOL 🙂
Well, I was young but he SEEMED really old.
LOL, not to be unkind, but that’s an interesting approach.
Really, really old, huh? 🙂
I’ve heard that, too about so many older men having it.
I rememeber one really, really old man in our church who had prostate cancer and he said, “They’re not going to treat it. The doctors say I’ll die from something else before this gets me.”
That is interesting. I was also reading that while 1 in 6 men are diagnosed, only 1 in 34 die from the disease and 80% of men over age 80 actually have the disease.
My husband’s father had prostate cancer too, it was discovered during routine prostate surgery (I can’t think of what that’s called) but they removed his prostate and he never had another bit of trouble.
My father’s was found the same way but for him, it began ten years of PSA tests (is that right? PSA) and his PSA would go up and they’d do radiation, then it’d go down but never to zero. Then a couple of years okay, then it’d start going up again, chemo, then it’d go down again.
He was really pretty good most of those ten years. He was retired and he and my mom did some great things in those years, traveling, and seeing a lot of grandkids born and graduate from high school. But it was always there, waiting and here it’d come again.
Hey, Mary. Again, so sorry for your loss.
I shared this post with my husband too.
Thank you for this. My father died from prostate cancer and we think my mother’s father died of this too. It was in the fifties and he died of what they called ‘spinal cancer’ but we know now cancer in the spine is usually spread from another site, very often the prostate. At least that’s what I heard.
My brothers need to be very aware of this. I’m going to direct them here, especially because of the precautions they need to take.