prostate factsheet
what is prostate cancer?
Prostate cancer is the third most common malignant disease occurring in men after lung and large bowel cancer; it is a slow growing kind of cancer which is rare below the age of 50 unless near relatives have had it; it becomes commoner with increasing age.
how would i know if i had prostate cancer?
You would probably now know at all in the early stages, but you might experience difficulty when you start and stop passing urine. However, it can now be detected by a blood test known as prostate specific antigen (PSA).
what is pSA?
This is a simple blood test which is good health registers 0 to 4. If your prostate is innocently enlarged, the level might rise from 5 to 10 and in prostate cancer it is usually in the 10 to 100 range. A refinement of this test has recently been introduced in which the ratio is the free PSA to the total PSA levels in the blood is calculated. This helps to interpret borderline results.
what treatment is available?
This depends on whether the cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland. Surgery and/or radiotherapy are used for early cases sometimes followed by hormone injections. These hormones can arrest the spread of the disease in advance prostate cancer, often for many years.
can it be cured?
Certainly yes, particularly if it is detected at an early stage. Every man over 50 should have this simple screening investigation performed annually.
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