Prostate cancer is more prevalent in North American and Western European men over fifty. African American men are more than fifty percent more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than their Caucasian counterparts. What makes this interesting is that men in Africa only rarely contact this cancer. This is similar for Asian men who have lower risks of prostate cancer until they come to live in North America where it rises. These two factors make researchers wonder if it may be diet related.
Men are at a higher risk if they have an immediate relative, a father or brother, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer at any age before sixty-five. If this is the case, then yearly testing should begin at no later than age forty-five. There are two types of tests that can be done at a man’s yearly check-ups that could save his life. One is a test called a prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test. The other is a rectal examination, which can determine if the prostate feels hard, which is often a first sign of prostate cancer.
It is important for all health care providers to explain to their male patients both the benefits and the damage of performing early detection tests as well as the treatments available should prostate cancer be detected. Nonetheless, early testing should be encouraged.
Oddly, prostate cancer is one of the slower growing cancers. This was reveled by autopsy studies done on men over seventy since as many as fifty percent of autopsies on men over seventy showed latent prostate cancer. It was not enough to cause symptoms or be responsible for any adverse affects or illness, but it was there. It was also found in forty percent of men over sixty. Statistics show that more men die with unknown prostate cancer than because of it.
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