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This article contains trusted sources with all references hyperlinked for the reader's visibility. Contact your doctor if you notice any of the above symptoms. And if you do catch any of these symptoms, try not to panic. These particular symptoms can often have to do with a non-cancerous prostate problem, as well as bladder infections.
Noncancerous conditions, like benign prostatic hyperplasia or an enlarged prostate, can also raise PSA levels. Most people with penises will get a PSA test in their lifetime. Depending on your age and risk factors, your doctor may encourage one. Genetics and age can play critical roles in determining the likelihood of prostate cancer. If you have relatives on your maternal or paternal side of your family with prostate cancer, you’re at an increased risk.
What Is Screening for Prostate Cancer?
Ask your doctor, nurse or other health care professional to recommend some reliable sources of information to get you started. These treatments may be considered for treating very small prostate cancers when surgery isn't possible. They may also be used to treat advanced prostate cancers if other treatments, such as radiation therapy, haven't helped.
If you’ve never had a PSA test before, it will provide you with a baseline total PSA level. If your test flags a high PSA level, your physician can pursue further diagnostic testing if needed. With this at-home test kit, you can quickly screen for prostate cancer, which is often asymptomatic in its early stages. Symptoms of BPH include difficulty starting to urinate, slow flow, dribbling, inability to urinate, and frequent urination are all common problems. If left untreated, an enlarged prostate can result in further complications, such as urinary retention, urinary tract infections, bladder, and kidney damage. Two tests that are commonly used to screen for prostate cancer are described below.
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Since it is an internal exam, it’s best done in a doctor’s office or another healthcare setting to avoid contamination. Since it takes a trained physician to detect the types of abnormalities that could indicate prostate cancer, a DRE is not a test that patients could administer accurately to themselves. If the results of early detection tests like the PSA test or the digital rectal exam suggest that you might have prostate cancer, your doctor will conduct further testing. The PSA may be repeated, or you may be sent to a specialist for more tests such as a transrectal ultrasound and a prostate biopsy. In addition to the PSA blood test, your doctor might also perform a DRE.
Symptoms may includefrequent need to urinate, incontinence, pain, blood in the urine, fatigue, and more. Prognosis and treatment depend on cancer staging.Watchful waiting, surgery, radiation, cryotherapy, and other management strategies are available. Research and clinical trials strive to find new and better treatments for prostate cancer.
Understand Your Prostate
The good news is that thereare many treatment and management options, even if the cancer is caught ata later stage. One of the best current methods for detecting prostate cancer is a blood test for prostate-specific antigen, commonly known as the PSA test. Elevated PSA levels may indicate cancer, but the majority of men with an elevated PSA dont actually have prostate cancer. If the biopsy indicates that a patient has prostate cancer, the doctor will usually check the cells for aggressiveness using Gleason scoring or genomic testing. Cancer screening means looking for cancer before it causes symptoms.
At Immunity Therapy Center, our goal is to provide objective, updated, and research-based information on all health-related topics. This article is based on scientific research and/or other scientific articles. All information has been fact-checked and reviewed by Dr. Carlos Bautista, a Board Certified Medical Doctor at Immunity Therapy Center. All information published on the site must undergo an extensive review process to ensure accuracy.
In a professional setting, the entire exam will take approximately ten seconds, so don’t spend too much time feeling around as it will only increase your discomfort with the exam. Performed at your doctor’s office, your doctor would position you either lying down on your side with your knees up or standing leaning forward with your hips flexed. This gives the doctor easier access to your rectum and prostate.
Urine test found to be extremely accurate at detecting aggressive prostate cancer with few false negatives. Other tests are needed to confirm a diagnosis because an abnormal PSA test can be due to non-cancerous causes. Equally, it is possible for a man to have a normal PSA level when cancer is present. In contrast, more than half of men with less than 10% free PSA are found to have cancer at biopsy. While cutoffs may be used, the percentage of free PSA is usually employed as an additional factor in making an informed recommendation for or against biopsy. Generally, these percentages are useful in patients who have a PSA level in the range of 4-10 ng/mL.
So, if you have a borderline PSA, your provider may simply recommend another PSA test in six months or so. If prostate cancer is found as a result of screening, it will probably be at an earlier, more treatable stage than if no screening were done. It’s best to look for prostate symptoms and then screen using a Prostate Specific Antigen blood test.
Active surveillance may also be considered for someone who has another serious health condition or who is of an advanced age that makes cancer treatment more difficult. Your doctor uses the information from these tests to assign your cancer a stage. Prostate cancer stages are indicated by Roman numerals ranging from I to IV.
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