Prostate

Prostate cancer in the most common cancer in men and is responsible for a quarter of all male cancer cases. Every year in the UK 35,000 men are diagnosed with this disease and 1man dies every hour from it.

Symptoms	Factsheet information
Risk Factors	What is the Cobalt Appeal Fund doing?
How is prostate cancer diagnosed?

Symptoms

• Passing urine more frequently than usual
• Having to rush to the toilet to pass urine
• Starting and stopping while urinating
• Dribbling of urine
• A feeling of not having emptied the bladder fully
• Pain when passing urine

Less common symptoms

• Blood in the urine or semen
• Impotence
• Pain in the lower back and hips

Anyone who has difficulty passing urine, or who notices a change in the way they pass urine, should go to their doctor.  Early diagnosis is the key to successful treatment.

Risk factors

• Prostate cancer is unusual in the under-50s. The rates increase sharply with age. Over 60% of prostate cancers are diagnosed in men aged over 70 years.
• It is generally a disease of the developed Western world and there is evidence to suggest that men of African descent are at greater risk than white men.
• Prostate cancer can run in families. The risk of developing prostate cancer increases if there is a first-degree relative (father or brother) who was diagnosed with prostate cancer at a young age. Having an elderly relative with prostate cancer is not uncommon and does not increase the risk. In a small number of cases, prostate cancer runs in families because of a faulty BRCA2 gene.

• Eating a healthy diet can lower your risk of many cancers.  But it's still too early to say whether diet can affect prostate cancer risk. There is some evidence to suggest that lycopene found in tomatoes may lower your risk.

How is Prostate Cancer diagnosed?

• The only way to feel the prostate gland is by a digital rectal examination. The doctor wears a glove and uses plenty of jelly. The examination should be quite painless, if undignified. This rectal examination has for years been the gold standard for detecting prostate cancer as well as the non-cancerous disorder benign prostatic hyperplasia.
• Family doctors can also do a blood test to measure the PSA (prostate specific antigen) levels. PSA is a protein that is only produced by the prostate gland.  There is no one PSA reading that is considered 'normal'. The reading will vary from man to man and the normal level increases with age.

3 ng/ml or less is considered to be in the normal range for men under 60 years old 

4 ng/ml or less for a man aged 60-69 

5 ng/ml or less if you are over 70

The PSA test is not a test specifically for cancer, but can show that there is a problem with the prostate.  It should be used together with other tests for diagnosing prostate cancer. A positive biopsy is needed to confirm cancer.

Men are advised to visit their doctor if they require more information on PSA testing or if they experience any symptoms listed.  Your GP should talk to you about the advantages and disadvantages of having the test and answer any questions you may have before you decide whether to have the test or not.

• Transrectal ultrasound is reported to be more sensitive than a rectal examination but not enough to be the only detection tool.
• To confirm the diagnosis of prostate cancer a small piece of tissue is removed for examination (a biopsy). This will be performed in hospital under anaesthetic. Body scans may also be needed to see if the cancer has spread.

Click here to view our Prostate Cancer Factsheet

What is Cobalt doing to help local people fight prostate cancer?

• The Charity has helped fund a new treatment option called Brachytherapy
  What is Brachytherapy? - low dose radioactive "seeds" each about the size of a grain of rice are implanted within the prostate at the precise site of the cancer. The seeds work on the cancer over the coming weeks and months. Due to the short amount of time required in hospital and that brachytherapy works directly within the cancer - it is considered to be less traumatic and have less side effects than other treatments available.
• Cobalt has funded a 2 year research project into the use of Ramon Spectroscopy to provide an objective method to diagnose prostate and bladder cancer. Mr Hugh Gilbert, Consultant Urologist at Cheltenham General Hospital is leading the Optical Diagnosis in Urology project.
• The Cancer Prevention Team give free prostate cancer talks and workshops pointing out the symptoms and risks linked to the disease - and most importantly to give men the confidence to visit their doctor and talk about any symptoms or changes they have experienced.  Early diagnosis of cancer is the key to successful treatment.