Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancer diseases for men. Because of its high number of patients, there are overload works for the topic and new ways of diagnosing are produced by clinics every year. Catching the symptoms of prostate cancer in the early period of disease is vital. There are a big number tests for diagnosing the prostate and today it’s possible to catch it even in the first days. When an abnormality is found on the tests, there are also several treatment ways and today prostate cancer has more treatment ways than other cancer types. How many ways of diagnosing prostate cancer?
One of the most common ways of diagnosing prostate cancer is regular screening. According to World Health Organization, all men over 40 must go doctor and made the regular screening every year. It’s every six months for some patients. According to researches, all men are under the danger of prostate cancer but African-American men’s family histories have more prostate cancers than other nationalities. According to American Health Organizations, African-American men must start regular screening at 40 and if the family history is including prostate cancer, he can make regular screening even in the younger ages. Biggest problem on prostate cancer is that cancer is showing rare symptoms or no symptoms in most of patients so many cancer patients are very late for diagnosing and even treatment. Main methods using in the regular screening are digital rectal exam or antigen blood test which is a special prostate specific one.
Digital Rectal Exam is the most common and oldest way of diagnosing prostate cancer. It’s true that because of exam’s nature, men feel discomfort during the exam but it lasts only 5 or 10 minutes today. Main method for the Digital Rectal Exam is inserting a gloved finger into rectum and doctor feel the edge of the prostate where most of the prostate cancers begin. If there are abnormalities when doctor touched with finger, he may want extended exams.
Prostate Specific Antigen Blood Test was using only if doctor feels something abnormal in Digital Rectal Exam but today most of the doctors want PSA before exam. It’s mainly taking a blood sample which includes PSA. It’s a protein that can only be produced by prostate cells. When the prostate started to enlarge, PSA level on the blood increases but all increases on PSA doesn’t mean the prostate cancer. It can be a strong alarm for prostate based problems.
Prostatic Biopsy is done if there’s a problem in exam or PSA. It’s mainly taking a small part from prostate. Today it’s possible to take the sample with a thin needle. According to requirement list of doctor, sample can be taken from different parts of prostate. It’s very important because in 90s, it was taking only from one place and it was frequent to miss the cancer place in prostate. It can be done only by urologists. Local anesthesia is a requirement for taking samples on this way. Samples are sent to pathologist and pathologist can say there’s no sign of cancer or give a grade to cancer.
If there is a grade in the pathologist’s result, doctor wants one of the methods like ultrasound, bone scan, MRI or Lymph Node Biopsy. Especially Lymph Node Biopsy is one of the latest ways for diagnosing prostate cancer. It’s using for both diagnosing prostate cancer and if it’s spread to close places or not.
All countries are setting new clinics for the prostate cancer and most important one of them is The United States Preventive Services Task Force.
