Prostate, is Your Friend or Enemy?
The prostate is a round cluster of glands located at the bottom of the bladder, about midway between the rectum and the base of the penis. The prostate encircles the urethra, the tube that expels urine from the bladder by way of the penis. The ping pong ball sized gland produces most of the fluid in semen. Contraction of the muscles in the prostate squirt fluid from into the urethra tract during ejaculation. This fluid makes up the majority of the ejaculate and transports and nourishes the sperm.
Three main types of prostate problems: enlargement, infection, and cancer. Prostate enlargement, called benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) is a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate. Although even men in their 20s can suffer from BPH, it normally only surfaces later in life. It’s estimated that fifty percent of all men will have BPH by reaching the age of 60, and a full ninety- percent will suffer from BPH by age 85. When the prostate enlarges outward, a man may not realize he has BPH unless it grows upward and puts pressure on the bladder. But when the prostate swells inward, squeezing the urethra, which passes through the center of the gland, he will certainly know there’s a problem. With the prostate constricting the urinary tube, a man can suffer from difficulty in urinating, straining to start urination, frequent urination, getting up multiple times at night to urinate, or urgency of urination.
The most serious prostate problem is cancer. Cancer of the prostate is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in males after skin cancer. It is the second most common cause of cancer death in males after lung cancer. The early symptoms of prostate cancer are extremely similar to those of BPH, including getting up often at night to urinate; urinating often, but only in small amounts; having to wait forever for the urine flow to start; and a urinary stream that starts and stops. These symptoms don’t mean that a person has prostate cancer. But these or other symptoms do indicate it’s time for a checkup.
Medical professionals recommend that men have annual rectal exams as part of a health checkup from ages 40 to 70, and those with high risk and all men 50 and over should add a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test every year as well. When prostate cancer is detected early and treated it has a high cure rate. Men are encouraged to discuss the options with their doctor. Based on past screenings doctors have observed that in men ages 50 to 59, the prostate cancer detection rate was basically the same whether men were screened every year or every two years. Therefore normal-risk men in their 50s can to be safely screened every other year. Since there is no cure for advanced prostate cancer, early diagnosis and treatment are essential. Since early prostate cancer normally doesn’t have any symptoms, it is extremely difficult to detect without testing. Screenings using both PSA and DRE tests have proven to be the best and only reliable method of identifying the disease when it can be still be cured easily. Almost fifty-eight percent of all cases are discovered while the cancer is still isolated and at its most treatable stage. A doctor can detect prostate cancer by digital rectal examination and by a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test.
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