Cancer Issues Prostate Cancer At A Glance

[marshbags]

Bangkok Post, MyLife, Thursday July 03, 2008

Cancer issues

Prostate cancer at a glance

ANJIRA ASSAVANONDA

Prostate cancer is a disease which develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. It ranks 9th among the cancers in Thai men, with the number of sufferers likely to increase each year, especially with men aged older than 45 and urban dwellers.

Globally, prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths and . According to statistics, one in six men encounter suffer from prostrate cancer at any stage of lives.

What are the causes?

The causes of prostate cancer are not specifically identified, but it is found that people whose family members have had the disease have a 30 per cent chance of suffering from it. If immediate family members have suffered from it, chances will double.

Besides family history, the living environment, modern lifestyle, diets, drinking and smoking, lack of physical exercise, as well as diseases such as diabetes and obesity are all risk factors.

How can prostate cancer be detected?

Dr Viroon Donavanik

Most men will not experience any symptoms at an early stage. And, even if there are symptoms, it can often be confused with prostate gland's disease.

When discovered, the cancer is likely to be fully developed. The only way to early detection is with a blood test for prostatic specific antigen (PSA).

If the PSA level doubles or significantly increases in a year, that signals some irregularities, and you may need to have your tissue examined.

Symptoms that might indicate the presence of prostate cancer

- A need to urinate frequently, especially at night.

- Difficulty starting urination or holding back urine.

- Weak or interrupted flow of urine.

- Painful or burning sensation while urinating.

- Difficulty in getting an erection.

- Painful ejaculation.

- Blood in urine or semen.

- Frequent pain or stiffness in the lower back, hips or upper thighs.

Treatment

Treatment in-cludes prostate surgery, chemotherapy, hormone replacement and combinative therapies.

Besides all those treatments, "brachytherapy" or implant radiation is being introduced as the most effective method to cure the cancer.

Dr Viroon Donavanik, radiation oncologist specialising in brachytherapy at Piyavate hospital said the treatment is a new choice for prostate cancer patients.

"If used for patients with early signs of cancer, the recovery chance is 90 to 95 per cent. And you can be sure the cancer will not return in 10 years," said Dr Viroon.

The advantage of brachytherapy is that it doesn't involve surgery and so is less painful, and has reduced side effects.

According to Dr Viroon, if patients remain strong and the cancer does not spread outside the prostate gland, it is possible for the disease to be completely cured. But if patients aged above 85, suffer from poor health, the least aggressive treatment would be best for them.

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Ref url for the full article :- http://www.bangkokpost.com/030708_Mylife/0...08_mylife06.php

Well worth a read in IMHO, informative and very good diagrams to go with it.

marshbags

Edited July 5, 2008 by marshbags

[Tolley]

One of the big problems with prostate cancer is that cure is often worse than the disease.

If the cancer is spread outside the prostate then the prostate is not your major concern anymore and the focus of treatment would be on where the cancer has spread to.

If it is still in the prostate itself you might be better off trying alternative methods to the traditonal methods mentioned above as the side effects are pretty severe eg erectile dysfunction, incontinence and in many cases recurrence.

Because it is a very slow growing cancer in most cases it may be better to try alternative methods and adopt a wait and see policy.

There is a lot of information about prostate cancer and a lot of confilicting advice and certainly even the PSA test is not as accurate as some would portray.

The other things is that once you have a biopsy this can actually accelerate things so before you do anything about prostate cancer i would certainly take a bit of time and look at all the available alternatives before making a decision on what sort of treatment to undertake.

For those men over 50 you should really start taking preventative measures via vitamin supplementation diet and exercise.