Prostate cancer is a dangerous cancer in men, at a severe level it can metastasize to other areas, especially to the bones and lymph nodes, causing pain and difficulty urinating, causing men to have problems in sexual relations, erectile dysfunction. So what are the signs of prostate cancer and how to treat it? Let’s refer to the article below.

1. What is prostate cancer?

Prostate cancer is also known as prostate cancer. This is a disease that only occurs in men, the prostate gland is located below the bladder, in front of the large intestine. It surrounds the urethra, the urinary tract inside the penis through which urine and semen are released.

Pathologically, prostate cancer is a fairly dangerous form of  cancer . Although it is a slow-growing disease, most people with mild prostate cancer can live for many years if detected early. However, if the disease is severe, it will spread very quickly and can be fatal. Prostate cancer can metastasize to other areas, especially the bones and lymph nodes, causing pain and difficulty urinating, causing men to have problems with sexual relations and erectile dysfunction.

2. Signs of prostate cancer

Usually, in the early stages of prostate cancer, there are almost no obvious symptoms. In later stages, some signs of prostate cancer may include:

Difficulty urinating: You feel the need to urinate but cannot go or suddenly stop urinating, or you may urinate more than usual. The prostate surrounds the urethra, so when a tumor appears, even a very small one, it can cause difficulty when urinating or ejaculating.

Pain when urinating: Because a tumor in the prostate compresses the urethra, it often feels painful when urinating. However, this sign can also occur when you have an infection of the prostate gland.

Blood in the urine: Seeing blood in the urine is sometimes just a light pink streak. Some other diseases such as urinary tract infections can also have this sign. Although this sign is less common, if you see this sign, you need to see a doctor immediately for testing and the most accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Difficulty maintaining an erection: Due to a prostate tumor, it will block blood flow to the penis to help with erection. An enlarged prostate also causes this sign.

Blood in semen: This sign is often not noticed by the patient. The amount of blood is very small, just enough to make the semen slightly pink or have blood streaks.

Frequent pain in the back, hips, upper thighs: Pain in the back, hips, and pelvic area is a common sign of prostate cancer.

Nocturia: This sign is often overlooked, but it is also a warning sign that you have prostate cancer. If you urinate more than twice a night, you should see a urologist.

Frequent urination: If you have uncontrolled urine leakage, you also need to pay attention. Although this sign is not common, you should pay more attention if you encounter it.

Back pain is a common sign of prostate cancer.

In the early stages, prostate cancer often has no symptoms. It can be detected by an elevated PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test. Sometimes the disease also causes symptoms similar to other diseases, such as benign prostatic hyperplasia.

In later stages of the disease, prostate cancer metastasizes to other areas of the body and can cause other symptoms such as bone pain. If prostate cancer metastasizes to the spine, it can also press on the spinal cord and cause leg weakness and incontinence.

Signs of prostate cancer often develop silently, or if they appear, they are often overlooked, so it is difficult to detect the disease in the early stages.

When examining a specialist, a urologist will perform specialized tests such as pelvic floor magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), prostate biopsy to help diagnose the disease, the degree of malignancy and the stage of the disease.

3. Treatments for Prostate Cancer

The current treatment trend for prostate cancer is to personalize treatment, meaning that the treatment method will be changed to suit each stage of the disease to maximize treatment.

There are a number of prostate cancer treatment methods as follows:

Surgery: The patient will have the entire prostate removed, both seminal vesicles along with bilateral pelvic lymph node dissection. This method can be applied when the tumor is still localized in the prostate (corresponding to stage I or II of the disease). At Vinmec, robotic endoscopic surgery has been applied to treat prostate cancer, bringing outstanding results.

Endocrine treatment: Because prostate cancer is sensitive to male hormones, removing the patient’s two testicles or using drugs that inhibit androgens will cut off the supply of male hormones to help prevent tumor growth.

Radiotherapy: Radiation is used to kill cancer cells: radiation from the outside is called external radiotherapy and implanting radioactive particles into the prostate is called internal radiotherapy.

Chemotherapy: Not a radical treatment for prostate cancer but is used in the castration-resistant stage, meaning that endocrine therapy is no longer responsive.