Health - Prostate Cancer Awareness

PROSTATE CANCER SYMPTOMS

The prostate is a walnut-shaped gland that is a part of the male reproductive system that wraps around the male urethra at its exit from the bladder.

Prostate 

Prostate cancer is common in men
over 50 years of age, with the risk of developing prostate cancer increasing with aging. Certain populations are at increased risk for developing prostate cancer, particularly African-Americans and men with a first-degree relative, father or brother, diagnosed with prostate cancer at a younger age.

Symptoms of Prostate Problems (and prostate cancer) include urinary problems such as: - 

• Decreased force of urine stream;
• Difficulty starting (hesitancy);
• The need to strain to urinate;
• Stopping/Starting of the Urine Stream (Intermittency);
• Frequent urination;
• Dribbling;
• Pain or Burning during Urination,
• Erectile Dysfunction;
• Painful ejaculation;
• Blood in urine or semen and/or deep back, hip, pelvic or abdominal pain;
• Other symptoms may include weight loss, bone pain and lower extremity swelling

What is prostate cancer?

Prostate cancer is cancer of prostate gland. The prostate gland is a walnut-sized gland present only in men, found in the pelvis below the bladder. The prostate gland wraps around the urethra (the tube through which urine exits the body) and lies in front of the rectum. The prostate gland secretes part of the liquid portion of the semen, or seminal fluid, which carries sperm made by the testes. The fluid is essential to reproduction.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer that develops in men and is the third leading cause of cancer deaths in American men, behind lung cancer and colorectal cancer. In 2017, the American Cancer Society estimated that 161,360 men will be newly diagnosed with prostate cancer and 26,730 men will die from the disease -- though many of them had lived with the disease for years prior to their deaths.

Prostate cancer is comprised nearly always of adenocarcinoma cells -- cells that arise from glandular tissue. Cancer cells are named according to the organ in which they originate no matter where in the body we find such cells. Thus, if prostate cancer cells spread in the body to the bones, it is not then called bone cancer. It is prostate cancer metastatic to the bones. Metastasis is the process of cancer spread through the blood or lymphatic system to other organs/areas throughout the body. Prostate cancer more commonly metastasizes to lymph nodes in the pelvis and to the bones.

source: medicinenet