Is it time for prevention?

Prostate cancer is the third most common cancer in men (after colon and lung cancer) and is generally one of the major medical problems in the male population. According to available information, the incidence of this disease and the mortality rate have been on an upward trend since the 1970s. Prostate cancer is a serious disease that affects a large number of men from the active age of forty to the elderly, significantly affecting their quality and length of life.

The greatest danger of prostate cancer is that the patient shows no symptoms in the early stages of the disease. Often the tumour is only detected due to distant metastases. Prevention therefore plays a key role in the treatment of prostate cancer. The simplest and most clinically relevant indicator of prostate cancer is the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the blood. An increased PSA concentration in the blood suggests that the prostate wall has become more permeable as a result of pathological changes, for example, a tumour, which can usually be detected at an early stage by blood tests.

A positive family history (or the presence of prostate cancer in a relative) is associated with an increased incidence of prostate cancer, indicating a genetic predisposition. The odds of high-risk prostate cancer at age 65 were 11.4% (versus a population risk of 1.4%) for men whose father and two brothers had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to one study*. This means that if you have one direct relative (most often your father) who has prostate cancer your risk of getting prostate cancer is 2 times higher, and if you have two or more relatives your risk is up to 11 times higher. Hereditary prostate cancer is also associated with onset of the disease six to seven years earlier, but the aggressiveness and course of the disease are not different in any other way.

So if you or a relative develops prostate cancer, talk to your doctor about screening options for other men in your family. Another important factor is age – as age increases, so does the number of tumours caught. Prostate cancer is most commonly detected in men aged 65 to 79. However, due to the slow growth of most types of prostate cancer, older patients are also more likely to have their life expectancy unaffected by prostate cancer – in layman’s terms, ‘they will die with prostate cancer but from another cause’.