Prostate Cancer is a common life threatening disease you hear every third man dealing with. One in eight men develops prostate cancer especially with increasing age they become more prone to it. But the best part is that this cancer has successful treatment rates than any other.
Here we will provide you with complete information about prostate, how cancer develops inside it, its risks, symptoms, treatment, and diagnosis.
What is a prostate?
A prostate is a small walnut-shaped gland found under the bladder and close to the rectum. It is the passage inside the penis through which the semen and urine pass through ‘Urethra’. It is a part of the male reproductive system that produces all the fluid from a man’s body and develops seminal fluid to produce sperms.
‘Testosterone’ is a male hormone that supports the prostate to develop and grow. The prostate grows with old age, its size increases as men age. Men with a big prostate then feel trouble urinating. This problem becomes more common in older men but this necessarily does not mean that it is a sign of cancer.
What is the prostate cancer?
The abnormal cell development inside the prostate causes prostate cancer. These numbers of abnormal cells then multiply and continue to grow and spread outside the prostate affecting other parts of the body surrounding it.
This uncontrollable growth creates frenzy inside the body. Cancer in the Prostate grows slowly that’s why it is not life-threatening or lethal.
Prostate cancer initially remains confined to the prostate gland so it is not harmful. In this way, there are aggressive types of prostate cancers and then the minimally invasive ones. The aggressive ones need instant treatment because they can spread fast while the slowly growing ones require minimal or zero treatment.
Any disease if detected in the initial stages has more chances of being cured same goes for cancers. If the prostate cancer will be detected early, the chances are you’ll completely get rid of it or treat it better.
Symptoms of Prostate Cancer
As mentioned earlier, prostate cancer has slow progress hence shows no significant symptoms in the early stages while in the later stages, it gives birth to the following symptoms:
- Frequent need and sudden rush to urinate
- Trouble urinating; for instance, poor flow of urine where you have to sit and wait and drop by drop urine passes painfully
- Severe distress while urinating
- Bloody urine or semen
- Discomfort and pain in the pelvic area (lower back, hips and upper thighs region)
- Erectile Dysfunction
- Pain in the bones
- Enlarged prostate gland
- Delayed or interrupted stream of urine
Treatment of Prostate Cancer
Weigh all the treatment options and their benefits and side effects before choosing any treatment option/plan. Some of them include:
- Radiation therapies
- Cryotherapy (cryosurgery)
In the earlier stages of prostate cancer, the policy of “watchful waiting” or “active surveillance” is adopted because it is not invasive at this stage. In this, careful monitoring is involved. The prostate gland can be removed surgically by hormone therapy or radiotherapy.
In the advanced stages, if the cancer is spread to other parts of the body especially the bones then it is incurable. Here, all a doctor can do is relieve its symptoms and give you more life span by controlling it to pose any further harms.
All the above-mentioned types of treatments involve some serious side effects like urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction. This is the reason many men choose to delay the treatment plan unless the cancer is widespread and risky.
Treatments like cryotherapy are a safer option comparatively due to fewer side effects like produce by radiations and hormone therapies.