Prostate cancer
Written by:Prostate cancer is the second most frequent among men, with approximately 899,000 new cases a year in the world. Therefore, its importance is clear and the only thing capable of curing it is early diagnosis. Unfortunately it is a totally silent tumor, when you have symptoms due to prostate cancer the chances of cure are practically nonexistent .
The symptomatology of cancer should not be confused with that of benign prostatic hyperplasia , they are two tumoral diseases, in the same gland, but with diametrically opposed treatments and prognosis.. Getting up to urinate at night, urinating with difficulty and little strength, are symptoms of benign prostatic tumor, not cancer .
Prevention and treatment of prostate cancer
The only prevention is to go to the urologist from the age of 50, if there has not been a family history of prostate cancer , once a year and, if there have been, after 40 years. The prostate specialist, the urologist, will perform a series of tests, among which is the determination in a blood test of the PSA and, if everything is normal, we can be calm until the next review.
Today with the triad , digital rectal examination , ultrasound and PSA , to which prostate biopsy occasionally has to be added, prostate cancer is perfectly curable . The golden standard of the treatment is still surgery, nowadays laparoscopic and therefore very comfortable for the patient with a hospital stay of three or four days only.
If it has been caught in time, no additional treatment is necessary, such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy, only a close monitoring, only with PSA analysis, the first two years on a biannual basis and then annually. The most frequent complications are urinary incontinence (approximately 3%) and the difficulty of later erection. For both complications there are very effective treatments today. In conclusion, the golden rule will be to visit the doctor-urologist once a year, which will avoid serious problems.
