Ballito Cancer Support Focuses on Men's Health for the month of November

During the early stages of prostate cancer there are usually no symptoms. Most men at this stage find out they have prostate cancer after a routine check-up or blood test.When symptoms do exist, they are usually one or more of the following:

• The patient urinates more often
  
• The patient gets up at night more often to urinate
  
• He may find it hard to start urinating
  
• He may find it hard to keep urinating once he has started
  
• There may be blood in the urine
  
• Urination might be painful
  
• Ejaculation may be painful (less common)
  
• Achieving or maintaining an erection may be difficult (less common).
  
• the prostate cancer is advanced the following symptoms are also possible:
  
• Bone pain, often in the spine (vertebrae), pelvis, or ribs
  
• The proximal part of the femur can be painful
  
• Leg weakness (if cancer has spread to the spine and compressed the spinal cord)
  
• Urinary incontinence(if cancer has spread to the spine and compressed the spinal cord)
  
• Faecal incontinence (if cancer has spread to the spine and compressed the spinal cord).
  

Causes of prostate cancer

Nobody is really sure of what the specific causes are. There are so many possible factors, including age, race, lifestyle, medications, and genetics, to name a few.

1) Age

Age is considered as the primary risk factor. The older a man is, the higher is his risk. Prostate cancer is rare among men under the age of 45, but much more common after the age of 50.

2) Genetics

Statistics indicate that genetics is definitely a factor in prostate cancer risk. It is more common among certain racial groups - in the USA prostate cancer is significantly more common and also more deadly among Afro-Americans than White-Americans. A man has a much higher risk of developing cancer if his identical twin has it. A man whose brother or father has/had prostate cancer runs twice the risk of developing it, compared to other men.

Studies indicate that the two faulty genes - BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 - which are important risk factors for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, have also been implicated in prostate cancer risk.

In a study scientists found seven new sites in the human genome that are linked to men's risk of developing prostate cancer.

Faulty BRCA2 gene linked to aggressive form of prostate cancer- researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research, UK, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology(April 2013 issue) thatmen who have inherited the faulty BRCA2 gene are more likely to have the faster-spreading type of prostate cancer.

Jaime Ernst

Founder BCSN