Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is a malignant (cancerous) tumor that begins growing in the prostate gland. It can spread from the prostate to nearby lymph nodes (small glands located throughout the body that collect and transport lymph, a fluid that carries cells that can help fight infection and disease), bones, or other organs. This spread is called metastasis (the spread of cancer cells to distant areas of the body). A male sex hormone called testosterone can stimulate the growth of hormone-dependent prostate cancer cells.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. There is good news which is that survival rates have improved; the 5-year survival rates for all stages of prostate cancer has increased from 67% to almost 100%. Contact your medical doctor about getting a PSA test if you are over 50 years old - early diagnosis is one of the keys to a high survival rate.

Prostate Cancer Key Points

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a protein produced by the cells of the prostate gland. The PSA test measures the level of PSA in the blood.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of the PSA test along with a digital rectal exam to help detect prostate cancer in men age 50 and older. The FDA has also approved the PSA test to monitor patients with a history of prostate cancer to see if the cancer has recurred.
Doctors' recommendations for PSA screening vary.
The higher a man's PSA level, the more likely it is that cancer is present, but there are other possible reasons for an elevated PSA level.
Doctors take several factors into account for men who have a rising PSA after treatment for prostate cancer.

Prostate Cancer Life Expectancy

The chances to getting sick of prostate cancer increases substantially as you get older, usually after the age of 50. But beside the age, the main risk factors can be the ethnicity, the higher risk is encountered more at African men, the family history is a well known reason, the risk of the disease is higher if someone of your family had or has prostate cancer, the diet is also a factor, in specially the diet abundant in fats, vasectomy increased the risks, but the high level of testosterone too. If you know the risk factors and the symptoms, you can easily discover if you are ill and you'll go to the doctor early. Thus, the chances to cure are better.

Prostate cancer is generally considered a slow growing carcinoma. This means you may have many high quality of life years ahead of you if you're respecting all diets and instructions from your doctor. As you get older, your risk of contracting prostate cancer rises, in special over 50 years. Men have a lifetime risk or chance of contracting a prostate malignancy of about one in ten and that chance increases as we get older.

Life expectancy after a diagnosis of prostate cancer will depend on what stage the cancerous tumor has progressed to, your age and by you to consider all treatment options. In the end, prostate cancer survivability rests with early diagnosis and effective treatment. Since we use the early detection tests for prostate cancer became fairly common (the prostate cancer death rate has dropped significant but it has not been proven that this is a direct result of screening. Even the most men have no symptoms, here are some ways to find out if you are ill or not. Most men find out that they are ill when they are examined through a digital rectal procedure, but usually the symptoms appears when the tumor causes urinary blockage, located in the bladder neck or urethra. Some of men accuse difficulty during the urination, usually at start or stop of the urinary stream, or appears the urinary retention, blood in the urine, impotence because of the disability to have an erection. In the last phase of the disease, when the prostate cancer has spread, appears fatigue, malaise and weight loss, bone pain and bone fractures. Those symptoms provide you warrant going to see a doctor and take your treatment.

Many of us think like that, but the fact that untreated prostate cancer leads to death is not, in and of itself, an indication for intervention. Treatment must lower the risk of death to justify any intervention. There are plenty of things that you can do with the information read here. Remember what you have been and you'll take the decisions easier.

Click here to read more on Prostate Cancer

Understanding Prostate Cancer Recommended Resources:

University of Michigan

University of Maryland Medical Center