The prostate is a specific male gland found deep in the pelvis. It is a walnut-sized and located just under the bladder and surrounds urethra (a tube) through which urine runs out when we urinate.
This gland is rich in nerves and muscle, but its function is not clearly understood yet.
- The prostate is considered a gland of the male reproductive system as it produces 20% of the fluid found in the semen. These substances are not essential for fertility, they only play a secondary role in helping sperm to survive and penetrate easier during the sexual intercourse.
- In addition, the gland is a source of other hormones and enzymes, but these are also not crucial for men to stay healthy
Normally, this gland is quite small, measuring 3-4 centimeters long by 3-5 centimeters in width. On average the gland weighs about 20 grams.
The problem is that it is common for our prostates to enlarge as get old. By age 70, more than 40% of men will experience its enlargement. Because of where the prostate is located, it may press against the urethra and men may experience problems with weaker or slower urination.
The prostate increasement and a change in urine flow do not necessarily mean you have a serious disease like cancer; Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), an infection or another urologic condition. It is important to note that BPH is not cancer, nor has it been shown to increase the risk of prostate cancer. However, a man can have both BPH and prostate cancer.
Three common diseases of the prostate are:
- Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)
- Prostatitis
- Prostate cancer
We’ll discuss later about the above diseases.
Now I think it’s important to know a little more about prevention as many men health experts and institutions state that prostate disease cannot be prevented and that the key is to detect and treat it as early as possible.
Part of experts disagree with this approach. I am not an expert, but reading a lot about this isues, I think that really exist a number a different strategies that can help to prevent the development of prostate problems, including cancer. And they are not only supported by me but supported by published research.
Strategies for prostate diseases prevention.
Let’s begin with the simpliest practices, may be you have never been thought.
- avoid venereal disease,
- avoid urinary tract infections (yes, men get them too!),
- keep your cholesterol low, it dramatically reduces likelihood of experiencing prostate diseases,
- have a good levels of exercise, but avoid long bike rides that iritate the prostate gland,
- consume plenty of fluids to stimulate urine flow,
- prevent kidney infection, and dehydration.
Limited physical examination
Limited physical examination includes check of penis, testicles and examination of prostate gland. The prostate gland exam is called Digital Rectal Exam (DRE) and involves a gloved finger in the rectum for a measurement of the size of the gland and feel for prostate nodule cancer (if they are).
Urine test
A urine specimen that the patient puts into a container then is examined under microscope for evidence of blood or infection chemical test on urine also checks for diabetes, kidney and liver disease.
Uroflow
That means to urinate in to a container measuring how strong the urine stream is. It’s a relevant test for men health.
Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) tests
They are substantially more sensitive for men health than DRE when it comes to detecting prostate cancer. PSA tests detect a large majority of this kind of diseases.
Bladder ultrasound
This is a simple non-invasive office procedure which may easily determine the amount of urine, if any, there is after emtying your bladder.
Prostate ultrasound
If it is ordered by your health care provider, the this test may be used to estimate the volume of the gland by using sophisticated computer software programs to help the physician.
The Intravenous Pyelogram
The Intravenous Pyelogram or IVP, is an X ray test where dye is injected into a vein, and pictures the internal tubes that drain the kidney of urine
Prostatitis
Prostate problems are common in men.
Most of these problems can be successfully treated with a help of urologists. They are specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions involving the prostate gland.
What the prostatitis is?
Prostatitis is an inflammation of the prostate gland. When this part of your body is inflamed, it is red, hot and sore.
Sometimes it is caused by a sexually transmitted organism, such as chlamydia. Most cases have nothing in common with sexual activity, they are caused by infections. These infections can’t be passed on to sexual partners.
Forms of prostatitis
There are four form of this disease:
- Acute prostatitis (bacterial) It is relatively easy to diagnose due to its symptoms that suggest infection. Men developing this disease often have fever, chills, pain in the genital area and lowr back, burning or painful urination, urinary frequency and urgency often at night,
- Chronic bacterial prostatitis If it is relatively poorly penetrated by antibiotics, prostatitis can become chronic. The pain symptoms come to the foreground.
- Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome It may be inflammatory or noninflammatory. In the inflammatory form, semen, urine, and other fluids from the prostate show no symptom of a known infecting organism. In the noninflammatory form, no sign of inflammation is present. This is a common but quite ununderstood form of the prostatites. It is found in men of any age; symptoms go away and then return without warning.
- Asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis No pain or discomfort having this disease, but there are white blood cells in the semen. Usually this form of prostatitis is found by doctors when looking for causes of male infertility or testing for prostate cancer.
Who gets prostatitis?
This disease is one of the most common urologic diagnoses, as it is a much broader health problem than was once considered Many men experience this disease excepting children.
Prostatitis is diagnosed checking for possible infection or urinary tract disorders. It may be also diagnosed by DRE (digital rectal examination)
Prostatitis treatment
First of all your doctor may suggest some lifestyle changes as diet, stress management.
Additionally,
- acute and chronic bacterial forms are treated with antibiotics.
nonbacterial prostatitis are treated with medications reducing the difficulty in urination or anti-inflammatory drugs for pain.
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)
The prostate has two main periods of growth.
In male early puberty, it doubles in size. Then, around age 25, the prostate begins to grow again and still grows most of a man’s life.
When the gland becomes very enlarged the man gets benign prostatic hyperplasia (BHH). It may compress the urethra which courses through the center of the prostate. In this condition urine goes slow from the bladder through the urethra to the outside. In many cases BHP can cause urine retention (urine accumulation in the bladder) and the cause urge incontinence. When is severe enough, BHP may complete block of the urethra which can damage the kidneys.
At what age is BHP likely?
BPH occurs more often in the West countries compared to Japan and China, and may be more common among blacks. Based on study of a representative sample of men the estimations for the Untied States are:
- Over 30% of men in their 50s- and 46% of men in their 70s experience moderate to severe BPH.
- Over half men who have had their bladder function tested, are unable to fully empty their bladder or urinary flow have diminished.
- More than one in three Caucasian men over the age of 50 may have some symptomatic BPH.
In European men, it has been estimated that 24% aged 50-59 and 40% aged 70-79 have symptoms of BPH.
The symptoms of BPH
The symptoms are the consquences of compressing the tube (urethra) that goes from the bladder to the penis
- difficulty initiating urination, long wait for the stream of urine to begin
- weak, poorly and decreased force of the urinary stream
- straining to urinate
- dribbling after urination has finished
- feeling that the bladder is not quite empty
- retention complete inability to urinate
- urination occurs a second time within two hours of the previous one
How dangerous is BPH?
First of all you must know that BHP is not a type of cancer. There are men with both prostate cancer and BHP.
BPH is extremely common. With an adequate health care any man with BHP can have a long and happy live. If left untreated, it may cause serious injury and even death. Mortality from BPH is most commonly related to kidney failure, infection, and complications of surgery.
Treatment for BPH:
Despite of evidency that half of all men over 50 develop symptoms of BPH, only 10% need medical or surgical intervention. A doctor usually can detect an enlarged prostate by rectal exam. The doctor also may examine the urethra, prostate, and bladder using a cytoscope, an instrument that is inserted through the penis.
Having BHP is very uncomfortable but not a tragedy. There is effective tratment function of your age, overall health, extent of the disease, and medical history. You may have opinions or preferences according to your tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies
Treatment for BPH may include
dietary factors
Avoiding or decreasing the intake of alcohol, coffee, and other fluids, particularly after dinner, is often helpful. Avoid diet high in zinc, butter, and margarine, and eat lots of fruits. Although this is not yet proven, intake of soy and drinking green tea and even water ionizer may benefit the prostate
medications that worsen symptoms
You should consult your physician. He will decide what is best for you.
Kegel exercises are not just for women’s health.
Physicians recommend practicing this exercise while urinating in order to isolate the specific muscle: contract the muscle until the flow of urine decreases or stops, and then release the muscle. It is recommended that men with BPH repeat five to 15 contractions, holding each for 10 seconds, three to five times a day
nonsurgical treatments
They may include investigative procedures in order to widen narrowed portion of the urethra or to destroy excess prostate tissue. In many cases macrowave heat is used.
surgical treatments
Surgical treatment aims to remove only the enlarged tissue that is pressing against the urethra. It varies from an open surgery when prostate is very much enlarged, to no external incision, including laser technology.
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Prostate cancer
Cancer developes diseases that affect the cells from body tissues and organs. Cells normally grow and divide in a controlled way, but sometimes, this process gets out of control and the cells divide to form an abnormal growth called a tumour.
Tumours can be benign or malignant.
A benign tumour is not cancerous as the abnormal cells do not invade other tissues or parts of the body. An example of cells grow into a benign tumor is BHP.
A malignant tumour is cancerous as cells continue their division in an uncontrolled way and have the powerto invade nearby tissues and parts of the body through the bloodstream or lymphatic system.
What prostate cancer is?
Prostate cancer is a condition where abnormal grow and division cells within the prostate result in a tumour.
In many men are common small areas of cancerous cells in the prostate. For many men, these cancer cells may be very slow growing and will never develope problems or life-threatening. It is estimated that about one in four men over the age of 50 may have a small area of cancer cells within the prostate.
Prostate cancer statistics
Prostate cancers occurs predominantly in older men; the median age at diagnosis is 72 years. White men have a lower incidence than black men.
 The cause of the deisease is unknown, but the incidence significantly varies by geographic region. This is an important indication that there are environmental factors that may breack out the disease. For example, men in China and Japan have a low rate of prostate cancer, but the incidence rises in Chinese and Japanese male population living to the United States.
The fear of having prostate cancer can be devastating for men.
Despite of wide incidence it is most successfully treated when found early. According to American Cancer Society statistics, even though is discovered in localized stage, the five-year survival rate is 100 percent. Much more, 68 percent survive beyond 10 years and 52 percent survive beyond 15 years
Treatment
The initial treatment for most patients with localized tumors is surgical removal of the prostate gland (prostatectomy). Localized prostate cancer can often be cured this way despite possible side effects of urinary incontinence and impotence. After surgery, a repeated blood test for protein-specific antigen can indicate whether any cancer remains.
Treatment options include
- external-beam radiation,
- implantation of radioactive isotopes,
- palliative surgery.
- hormonal manipulation by giving estrogens or other drugs,
- cryosurgery, destroying the tumor by freezing.
Prostate cancer better diagnosed in urine tests than PSA
Men are 33% more likely to develope prostate cancer than women are to develop breast cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancerous disease for older male population. By statistics, from every 4 prostatecancer patients, 3 are over 65 aged.
Screening for prostate cancer, men middle-aged and seniors often get PSA tests. In many cases PSA testing is unrelevant as many men with normal test results are prostate cancer sufferers.
 According to a new study [February 2005] a simple urine test may improve the diagnosis and treatment of this male disease. The results come from a preliminary study from Children’s Hospital Boston, led by Dr. Bruce Zetter.
He is especially interested in a protein that sustain malignum tumour development by stimulating cell migration It is called thymosin ß15 and promotes metastasis in prostate cancer. Dr. Zetter’s study revealed that this protein is produced almost exclusively by cancerous cells, it is detectable in urine and should be the next target in treatment methods.
In this study, Zetter and colleagues used about 300 urine samples from patients and comparted to other 53 healthy men samples serving as controls. From above 300 male patients, 121 were with prostate cancer treatment, 81 with non-malignant prostatis, 73 with urologic diseases like urinary tract infection and 15 with kidney or bladder cancer.
The results revelead:
- the protein thymosin ß15 levels were elevated in men with untreated or aggressive prostate cancer, but near-normal or normal in men with other diseases or in healthy men.
- urine samples of men with aggressive cancerous prostate disease were 12 times more likely than the healthy controls to have elevated thymosin ß15.
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New vaccine for prostate cancer disease
Good news regarding prolonging life for those fighting with prostate cancer is coming from the results of a study led by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco made public on February 2005 at a prostate cancer symposium in Orlando.
A very innovative treatment for prostate cancer has been found for the first time to prolong the lives of sufferers with this male disease, the most common form of cancer among aged men. The new treatment uses a person’s own immune system and act like a vaccine.
The vaccine, which is called Provenge, is being developed by Dendreon, a Seattle-based biotechnology company.
The above mentioned study involved 127 men with prostate cancer and who no longer responded to the conventional treatment by hormone therapy, but who had not yet experienced any form pd disease pain.. For three years patients were given either the vaccine or a placebo in three doses over a six-week period. Those patients who received the vaccine survived, on average, for 25.9 months, compared with 21.4 months for men who received a placebo,
After three years, three times as many vaccine patients were still alive, compared with the placebo group
The study concluded that cancer “vaccine” increased survival, on average, by 4.5 months among men with severe and advanced prostate cancer who no longer responded to other therapies.
This is not a significant improvement in prolonging life by a few months, but the study represents an important validation for cancer vaccines and a little hope for patients without many options that can be developed by further contributions.
Strict low-fat diet may stop prostate cancer
Studies show that Dr. Ornish’s radical ultra low-fat diet can help heart disease and has been used in geriatrics. Together with other lifestyle changes this regimen may help patients keep early-phase prostate cancer from worsening. Patients must exercising regularly and practice stress-management techniques such as yoga.
The famously strict regimen it’s almost a vegetarian one, fat representing maximum 10 percents from total calories.
The research conclusions, published in the September 2005 issue of The Journal of Urology, is a veritable tentative to increase interest in whether this diet might really help winning cancer.
Dr. Ornish stressed that his conclusions doesn’t mean men people should opt for diet over conventional treatment procedure. He explained that the diet may help men undergoing therapy.
“I always find it amusing” that people call the diet hard, Ornish said. “Compared to having your prostate removed? … The only side effects are you feel better and it helps prevent heart disease.”
Dr Ornish findings come after another study suggesting that low-fat diets might help women avoid a recurrence of breast cancer. |
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