What you should know about prostate cancer… It’s exclusively a man thing. The prostate is a walnut sized gland that sits just under the bladder. Its job is to produce the bulk of semen to help protect and nourish sperm on their trip to the womb.

What causes it?

While nobody knows what causes prostate cancer, there are some recognised risk factors:

• Birthdays: Risk increases over the age of 50. Prostate cancer is rare in younger men.
• Family history: if your father or brother had prostate cancer your risk increases. If they had it at an earlier age your risk is even higher. Talk to your GP
• Western diet: High fat, lots of red meat. Countries with low fat and low meat diets have low levels of prostate cancer.
• Obesity: Being overweight is a major risk factor for all cancers


Happy Birthday with many returns

As men get older, their urine flow can become slower and the bladder needs to be emptied more often thus more trips to the loo. This is usually due to enlargement of the prostate gland putting pressure on the urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the penis). If you do need to pee more often, it doesn’t mean that you have prostate cancer. But it is important to see the doctor and rule it out. With early discovery, prostate cancer can be treated very successfully.

The symptoms of all prostate problems are similar:

• Needing to pass water often, especially at night
• Difficulty in starting to pee
• Straining to pee or taking a long time to finish
• Pain when passing water or during sex when you have an orgasm

Other less common symptoms that may be prostate cancer are:

• Pain in the lower back, hips or pelvis
• Blood in the urine ( this is unusual for prostate cancer but may be a sign of another disease

However these symptoms are often due to something else and not cancer

Prostate cancer is different from other cancers - some prostate cancers grow slowly and may not need treatment, but some grow quickly and need early treatment. When something goes wrong with the prostate it can affect a man’s sex life, his long term health and, if its prostate cancer it may be fatal.

You do not have to put up with these symptoms just because you are getting older. If you are worried you should go and see your doctor soon. Prostate problems can be diagnosed and treated.

Getting it sorted

Get used to hearing the initials ‘PSA’. They stand for ‘Prostate Specific Antigen’ which is a simple blood test. That’s about as simple as it gets though. A raised PSA level is usually not a sign of cancer. It can be caused by inflammation and a large but non-cancerous prostate. So talk to your GP about the meaning of the results in terms of possible treatment before you consider doing a PSA test.

Your doctor will usually carry out a physical examination as well as a blood test for PSA if the levels are high your doctor may refer you for further tests. If further tests show that you have prostate cancer, the treatment you are offered will depend on your age, general health and the stage or grade of the cancer.

Top treatments

Possible treatments include surgery, radiotherapy, hormone therapy and sometimes chemotherapy. There have been significant improvements in treatment over the past decade.