Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men (not including non-melanoma skin cancers, which are rarely serious). It causes significant illness and mortality.
For a more detailed treatment, see Prostate.
The prostate gland, found only in males, lies just below the bladder, and the urethra (the tube that carries urine) runs directly through it (although in some other mammals, the urethra runs around, rather than through, the prostate[1]). This fact is important in explaining many of the symptoms of the disease.
The primary risk factors for prostate cancer are:
Approximately a quarter of a million men will be diagnosed each year, and about thirty thousand will die of the disease. However, prostate cancer can be a very slowly progressing disease, and many men die of other natural causes before their prostate cancer harms them.
Prostate cancer is usually diagnosed by symptoms, by digital rectal exam, or by a blood test measuring a chemical called prostate specific antigen (PSA). Symptoms, when the occur, are related to the location of the gland, and often include:
All of these symptoms can be normal signs of benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), and do not necessarily mean a man has cancer.
Diagnosis is usually made by ultrasound and biopsy of the gland.
The treatment of prostate cancer is an area of very active research. Treatment of any particular patient depends on the particular tumor and the particular patient. Therapy may include radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, hormone therapy, or any combination of the above. Prognosis is often quite good, in early prostate cancer, however, as stated above, the disease causes considerable illness and death in the U.S.