Screening for prostate cancer: recommendations and rationale.

Results of compliance with prostate cancer screening guidelines.

At the moment, routine screening for prostate cancer is not carried out in any country, because none of the available tests are accurate enough. Several medical societies have published recommendations for prostate cancer screening.

Screening for prostate cancer is available and is generally done by testing the blood for certain proteins associated with the prostate. Screening tests and biopsies for prostate cancer can give ‘false negative’ results.

Screening for prostate cancer with prostate-specific antigen: be aware of the biases.

Screening tests allow doctors to check for prostate cancer in men who have no symptoms. There is currently insufficient evidence to show thatit would reduce deaths from prostate cancer. So, not every man with prostate cancer will have his cancer detected using available screening and diagnostic tests.
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One common treatment for prostate cancer is watchful waiting and here we examine just what this is and when it might be used.

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If, like a growing number of men, you have been having regular prostate screening which has picked up the possibility of prostate cancer, and this has subsequently been confirmed with a biopsy, then you are probably lucky enough to have caught the cancer early when it is still confined to the prostate gland and in what is called Stage I or Stage II. If this is the case then one possible course of treatment might be ‘watchful waiting’.

Some people feel that it is slightly odd to call watchful waiting a form of treatment because, as the name suggests, you simply watch the cancer and wait to see what happens. Other names for this approach are ‘observation’ and ‘surveillance’. So when would this approach be appropriate?

As long as your cancer is confined to the prostate gland you are generally fairly safe and it is not until it threatens to spread beyond the prostate that your doctor will become concerned. So, if like many prostate cancer cases your cancer is both confined to the prostate gland and growing very slowly there is no need for immediate action and it is often safe to simply take some time and see how it develops.

Now if you are getting on in years and in this situation watchful waiting may well be a very good option because if the cancer is growing slowly enough there is a very good chance that you will die from old age, or some other condition, before it gets to be a problem. In these circumstances you might well feel that it would be silly to put yourself through surgery or radiation therapy for little if any real gain. So, in this case you would simply visit your physician at regular intervals for him to keep an eye on things and do nothing at all unless a problem arises.

If however you are still a reasonably young and otherwise fit man then watchful waiting might again be a sensible approach for a while but it may not always be such a good idea in the longer term, not least because, even though your cancer may be growing very slowly, you are still reducing your control of the disease the larger your cancer becomes and this may cause a problem if and when you are forced to deal with it.

Dealing with prostate cancer, whether by surgery or radiation treatment, is best done when the cancer is small and when you are in the best position to cope with treatment and recovery. The older you get the more likely it is that complications will arise from your treatment or that you will have difficulty in recovering following treatment.

Another very important consideration is the way in which you cope with watchful waiting mentally. For some men simply sitting back and doing nothing knowing that they have a cancer growing in their prostate gland can be very stressful indeed. However, for other men the fact that they have cancer doesn’t bother them at all as long as they know that it is slow growing, confined and being monitored regularly.

At the end of the day you must clearly be guided by your physician, but whether you choose to live with your prostate cancer or to seek treatment for it is, and always should be, very much a personal decision.

Find more about the wide range of prostate problems including everything from the digital rectal exam to advanced prostate cancer treatment.

By Donald Saunders

Nearly all men will run into some form of prostate problem during their middle or later years and, thankfully, in most cases these problems will be relatively minor or, if they are more severe, at least not life threatening.

For some men however the problem will be prostate cancer and a diagnosis of cancer can literally turn your world, and that of your family, upside down.

Hopefully, more and more men will begin the process of screening for prostate cancer and their problem will be caught at an early stage when there are several treatment options available and the possibility of curing the disease completely is good.

But, whether this is the case or not, a diagnosis of prostate cancer can still be devastating and you need to consider carefully just how you are going to deal with it.

As with so many things in life these days dealing with prostate cancer can be complicated and there are many different opinions about just what the best course of action is. For this reason it is always wise to take a step back for a moment and educate yourself about this disease before rushing into any decisions. Your doctor will be able to give you advice and also to furnish you with some literature and of course there is probably no better place to research the condition today than right here on the Internet.

Many people panic when they are diagnosed with cancer but, unless your prostate cancer is a particularly aggressive form of cancer and is spreading rapidly, which is rare, you do not need to do anything today and can take a few days to let things sink in and to do your homework. This is also a good time to get a second opinion. Many people worry about getting a second opinion thinking that they are in some way doubting their doctor’s competence. This however is not how your doctor will see it if he is worth his salt and it is very sensible to get another view on your condition and opinion about how best to treat it.

You will find that there are usually several treatment options open to you depending upon several factors such as your age and general state of health, as well as whether or not you are suffering from any additional problems arising out of an enlarged prostate, such as kidney damage or bladder infection. In the vast majority of cases however, even when your options are narrowed because of your age or health, you will still have several routes which you can follow.

However, before you get involved in the details of different treatment options it is also a good idea to sit down and consider just how you feel about having cancer. This may seem an odd thing to say, but people react very differently to a diagnosis of prostate cancer and just how you feel about will be an important factor in your treatment decision.

For example, do you feel strongly that you want to do whatever it takes to get this ‘thing’ out of your body and that you couldn’t possibly stand the thought of living with cancer for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Or do you feel that you have lived to a ripe old age and that you wish to pass your remaining days in comfort and certainly do not want to put yourself through surgery or the side-effects or radiation treatment and chemotherapy.

Take the time to think carefully about your own situation and that of your family and weigh your own personal circumstances carefully. If you are alone and in your late seventies you may feel differently from a relatively young man in his forties with two young children to care for.

Medical treatment is not simply a matter of science but is something which is very personal to you and should always focus on your needs and, most importantly, on your wishes.

ProstateProblemCenter.com focuses on a wide variety of prostate problems including enlarged prostate treatment.

By Donald Saunders