Prostate Cancer
Learning about prostate cancer can help you take a more active role in the prevention, screening, and treatment of the disease. The information you learn will give you a better understanding about the risk factors, methods of detecting prostate cancer, and side effects associated with prostate cancer treatments. This will better prepare you to make the difficult decisions regarding prostate cancer screening and treatment.
Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer among American men. The only other cancer that affects more men is skin cancer. According to estimates, approximately 217,730 men in the United States will be newly diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010. Overall, about 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer sometime during his lifetime.
What is Prostate Cancer?
Prostate cancer is cancer that originates in the prostate gland. The prostate gland is part of a man's reproduction system, thus only men get prostate cancer.
One of the primary risk factors for prostate cancer is age. That is, the older you are, the more likely you are to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The average age at diagnosis of prostate cancer in the United States is 69 years. More than 65 percent of all prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over the age of 65.
The estimated number of men who will be diagnosed with prostate age, by age:
- 1 in 10,000 men under age 40
- 1 in 38 men for ages 40 to 59
- 1 in 15 men for ages 60 to 69
All cancer, whether prostate cancer, lung cancer, or breast cancer, is characterized by cells that grow out of control. The cancer cells can invade normal cells and destroy them; sometimes they grow directly into the surrounding tissue and sometimes they travel (metastasize) to other parts of the body thru the bloodstream or lymph system.
Prostate cancer is usually a slow growing cancer that can take years before it causes problems. If the prostate cancer stays within the limits of the prostate it does not generally cause much harm. There are some forms of prostate cancer that are very fast growing, however, and experts are unable to tell the difference.
Treating Prostate Cancer
The different kinds of cancer have different behaviors, different growth rates, and different responses to treatment. Each type of cancer must be treated with methods that are designed to treat that particular type of cancer. Treatment for prostate cancer varies from treatment for other types of cancer and is designed to specifically destroy prostate cancer cells.
Most cases of prostate cancer are discovered in the early stages of the disease and able to be successfully treated due to modern methods of screening and treatment. Although it's impossible to guarantee an outcome in any individual case, the overall five-year survival rate for men diagnosed with prostate cancer is almost 100%. This statistic means that the majority of the men diagnosed with prostate cancer are still alive five years after their diagnosis.