Not All Kinds of Prostate Tumors Are Cancerous

As a standard precaution in the battle against prostate cancer men, and especially men past the age of 50, should have annual doctor checkups and screenings to either rule out the disease or if prostate cancer is present catch it in the earliest stages when the most treatments options are available and prostate cancer is easiest to cure.

It is accepted that an early diagnosis of prostate cancer is the best indicator of being able to successfully treat the disease. But in many cases what makes early diagnosis difficult is that prostate cancer has few if any signs and symptoms in the early stages, and that means to preserve the advantages of early detection, men need to have annual checkups and tests.

Otherwise if men wait until the classic symptoms of prostate cancer, such as difficulty urinating, pain on ejaculation (or impotency) blood in the urine, and/or backache appear it usually indicates the prostate cancer is advanced and may have already spread to other parts of the body. After prostate cancer has spread there are many more complications, fewer treatment options, and lower survival rates. .

So instead of waiting for symptoms to appear annual PSA tests (prostate specific antigen) and DRE (digital rectal exams) are the first line of defense for early detection of prostate cancer. And these annual tests are also valuable when the opposite occurs. There are many instances when the same symptoms of prostate cancer manifest themselves even though tests for cancer are negative. The reason for that is prostate cancer shares the same symptoms with several other medical conditions, and fortunately these conditions are far less debilitating and deadly.

The most common non-cancerous medical condition is BPH (benign prostate hyperplasia). BPH causes the prostrate to grow which then affects the function of the urinary system. The symptoms of BPH are blood in urine, difficulty urinating such as dribbling, interruption of stream, sudden urges to urinate, leakage, and the sensation of the bladder not being empty. This condition is easily treated with medications that shrink the prostate.

Precancerous tumors can actually grow very rapidly, and unlike benign tumors, precancerous tumors do damage the tissues surrounding them , which helps fuel growth, and increases the likelihood of the tumor turning malignant. Hopefully, if the individual is having annual checkups and screening, cancer can either be ruled out or at least detected in its earliest stage when the odds of successful treatment are highest.

But that requires an unbroken chain that begins with men willing to take the initiative, be proactive about their health, and have annual checkups especially after the age of 50. The next link is the doctors who perform the necessary screenings and further tests that might be required. One of those tests might even be a biopsy. And biopsy is a word that can immediately conjure up images of a deadly tumor, malignant and metastatic. But remember when it comes to the prostate gland two of the three possible biopsy results are non-cancerous.

Two out of three are good odds. And a healthy diet, regular exercise, annual checkups and screenings, can drastically increase those odds. It doesn’t take a gambler to see what an easy winner that is. Which is good; because gambling with a person’s health is never a smart game.

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