The prostate cancer is a frightening disease, not only because of its dramatic consequences but also because is the second most common form of cancer affecting men from the entire world.



Doctors recommend to all men who had already reached the age of forty to regularly seek for a medical counseling and do the screening tests for an early detection of this disease, since it has no early symptoms.

Fortunately, things have changed since the 1850’s when the prostate cancer was officially recognized and treatments are getting better results with every year passing by.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancies were still low and the medical information about this disease was lacking, so death was not a rare sight among those who suffered because a prostate cancer.

We now know what may probably cause a prostate cancer, what symptoms describe it and how it is evolving in the organism. The staging process is very important because once the stage is correctly determined a proper treatment could be prescribed. So, even if the cancer is metastatic, there are some effective treatments available for it. Sure, it is better for an early detection of the prostate cancer and the screening tests are often recommended.

Usually the results of the treatments may vary according to how far spread is the cancer in the organism and this spreading process is done by invading the neighboring tissues, spreading through the lymph vessels and lymph nodes or by traveling through the bloodstream to far away tissues.

Death caused by this terrifying disease could be avoided but not the after-effects of the treatments.

For example, surgery, also known as prostatectomy, is the most frequently used method of conventional treatment, the operation being made on a certain part of the body usually removing the malignant tumor or infected tissue parts; the side effect of this operation could be devastating because there is always the risk of local bleeding and a survey has shown that one per cent among men with ages between sixty five and sixty nine die because of the operation.

Also the androgen deprivation therapy or hormone therapy increases the risk of a coronary artery disease, the result being death caused by a cardiovascular disorder.

Statistics have shown that the hormone treatment significantly increased the risk of death for patients who opted for prostatectomy to treat the localized form of prostate cancer but also that patients who chose this medical treatment procedure had an increased dying risk of about 85 per cent higher in comparison to those who didn’t receive any treatment at all.

These results are discouraging but every treatment has its side effects because for such a terrible disease as the cancer, which can always regenerate, radical treatments should be prescribed.

Death is not an option and could be avoided as long as the patient understands its situation and carefully listens for the doctor’s advices. In choosing a treatment the doctor will always pay attention to the personal preferences of the patient but the recommendations will come only after he ponders about the treatment possibilities available out there.