Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is a disease that affects men from around the age of 45 years. It involves the prostate gland, which is a small gland about the size of a walnut, positioned just beneath the bladder, and is responsible for producing fluids that nourish and protect sperm.
The disease is the commonest male cancer in the UK.
Around 20,000 men in this country are diagnosed each year. Sadly, approximately 10,000 British men die of prostate cancer every year.
Prostate cancer generally takes a long time to progress and it can take 10 years before it is detected.
The symptoms of prostate cancer are;
- Frequent visits to the bathroom to pass urine
- Pain while passing urine
- Blood in the urine
- Impotence (inability to sustain an erection)
- Hip or lower back pain
During the early stages of the disease some men do not develop symptoms at all. Therefore, a lack of symptoms does not always mean that you are free from the disease, and further tests will be needed to confirm this. If prostate cancer has been detected in the biopsy specimens, you now have several difficult choices to make with regard to treatment. The way the disease is treated depends on many factors, including your age and the size and grade of your cancer.