THE PROSTATE: IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY HISTORY OF PROSTATE CANCER
If you have a family history of prostate cancer, get regular checkups and tests for BPH, including a digital exam of your prostate by your physician. The use of a screening test, such as a ptostatic-specific antigen, or PSA, test, is still controversial, and its results are unproven.
Whenever I feel a hard nodule in a patient’s prostate, I refer him to a urologist, even if he has no signs of urinary problems. The urologist will use a sonogram to check for cancer and will take a biopsy—which is a totally safe procedure—if he strongly suspects the presence of cancer. The biopsy is done either in the urologist’s office or in the hospital on an outpatient basis.
If you have an enlarged prostate with no signs of cancer, taking 5 milligrams of Proscar once a day for at least six weeks can help keep your symptoms manageable. Also, your doctor may suggest that you take Hytrin, a mild antihypertensive medication that can have the immediate benefit of reducing the effect an enlarged prostate has on urinary retention. You’ll usually start a regimen of Hytrin with a dosage of 1 milligram each day and slowly build it up to 5. Unlike with intestinal cancer or breast cancer, there’s not much you can do to lower your risk of prostate cancer, such as changing your diet.
A great deal of evidence shows that men who have prostate cancer do extremely well, even when it has spread. The most common therapy uses the hormone estrogen; what’s curious is that a form of cancer that only men get is treated with a female hormone, while breast cancer is typically treated with tamoxifen, a form of male hormone. The side effects of hormone treatment for prostate cancer include a loss of sexual desire and an increase in breast size.
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