Prostate Cancer - Signs, Symptoms and Treatment

The prostate is a gland about the size and shape of a walnut which only men have. It's found just beneath the bladder, in front of the man's rectum.  Because of its proximity to the rectum, a doctor can feel the prostate during a rectal exam. 
 
The prostate's function is to make and store a fluid which is part of his semen.  During ejaculation, this fluid is released from the penis.  The male hormone known as testosterone signals the prostate to release.  The nerves of the penis which produce and maintain an erection run quite close to the location of the prostate.  The prostate totally surrounds the tube which carries urine to the penis from the bladder (this tube is called the urethra).  Whenever the prostate enlarges, it often blocks the urine's flow from the bladder, causing some difficulty for the men in urinating.
 
Cancer can strike the prostate when the prostate's cells start growing out of control, invading nearby tissues or otherwise spreading throughout the body.  A large collection of the out-of-control tissue are known as tumors.  Some tumors are not cancerous, but are "benign." These are tumors that lack the ability to spread and thus threaten the man's life.  Only "malignant" ones (tumors which can spread) are cancerous and life-threatening.
 
Prostate cancer is normally slow-growing--although sometimes it grows quickly, spreading to the lymph nodes in the proximity.  Whenever prostate cancer spreads to the lymph nodes, this indicates a higher likelihood it has spread to other parts of the body.
 
Every man beyond age 45 has a higher risk for prostate cancer, although in some cases it strikes younger men.  However, most men with the cancer--about 70 percent -- are over age 65.  Prostate cancer strikes more men than any other cancer, with 189,000 cases diagnosed a year, and more than 30,000 annual deaths in the united States.  It's difficult to determine why some men get prostate cancer and others don't, but it seems that important risk factors are age, genetics, diet and ethnicity.  Of these, age appears to be the most important factor.
 
For some reason, prostate cancer strikes African Americans and Latinos more than Caucasians.  However, Asians and Native Americans have the smallest chance of getting the disease.  Some evidence suggests that diet plays a role in the likelihood of developing prostate cancer.  If so, then probably the biggest dietary culprit is eating a lot of animal fats and few vegetables.
 
Prostate cancer is normally a slow-moving disease, so in many cases, it's possible that an older man will die of other natural causes before he even realizes he has the cancer.  For this reason, there is a lot of hope for increasing survivability just by slowing the diseases progression.  Right now, though, the best way of preventing prostate cancer is to change the risk factors that you can control-such as eating a low-fat diet that features a lot of fruits and vegetables and little animal fat.
 
Symptoms of prostate cancer don't usually manifest until after they're detected via tests; nevertheless, important signs include: trouble with starting to urinate, more-frequent urination, a feeling of being unable to release all of the stored urine, painful urination, painful ejaculation, blood in the urine or semen, bone pain, and impotence.  Keep in mind, though, that each of these symptoms could be caused by man other things other than prostate cancer.  Still, it's recommended that you see a doctor for these symptoms.
 
Treatment for prostate cancer often involves surgery, which attempts to cure the disease by removing the prostate and ridding the body of all of the cancer.  This method works best with early prostate cancer, however it's sometimes used also to relieve the symptoms of more advanced prostate cancer.
 
Another method with about the same survival rate in early-stage prostate cancer is radiation therapy.  this method uses high-energy x-rays to destroy the cancer cells. This option is often chosen for patients who are too ill for the anesthesia involved in surgery.  This method is painless, and involves having the patient come in for five days every week for six to eight weeks.  The visits, though many, are short.
 
Hormonal therapy is another treatment option for prostate cancer.  In this method, the medical staff removes androgens from the body, causing the cancer to shrink and not grow as quickly.  You can remove the androgens by removing the man's testicles, by giving him drugs which block androgen production, or by giving the man estrogens.  What this does is buy time for the patient; remember that prostate cancer typically grows slowly any way, and so hormonal therapy could add many years to the patient's life without the need of surgery or radiation therapy.
 
Chemotherapy, the use of cancer-fighting drugs, which travel throughout the patient's entire body, is usually only used for prostate-cancer patients whose advanced cancers no longer respond to hormonal therapy.
 
An experimental treatment method is cryosurgery--in which liquid nitrogen probes are implanted into the man's prostate, after which the tissue is frozen.  The freezing kills the malignant cells, and if needed, can be repeated several times.  Cryosurgery has possible side effects such as impotence and urinary incontinence, and has also been found to be less effective than radiation therapy and surgery.
 
And finally, there is the "watchful waiting" method.  Since, as discussed, prostate cancer normally progresses very slowly, patients who aren't expected to live much more than 10 years sometimes choose to wait out the disease, under regular monitoring by their doctor.  No matter which method is used, though, constant communication with medical staff is suggested.