What are the Symptoms of Prostate Cancer

In my book, The Prostate Storm, I write at some length about my prediagnosis experience with hematuria (blood in the urine), urinary tract irritation and infections, chronic and acute prostatitis, frequency, dribbling, burning and urgency.  They're all potential signs of advanced prostate cancer, as well as BPH and prostatitis, the other two common prostate diseases. 

I had the targeted, high-dose radiation in 2008 and, interestingly, all those symptoms have disappeared.  The cancer is gone, but so is the annoying BPH and prostatitis (apparently), which was everywhere in my pathology report. As one doctor later told me, "you got a three-fer."

With that in mind, here's a look at the symptoms for prostate cancer from an excellent site on all-things-prostate, Prostate Cancer Treatment Guide:

First of all … there are no early prostate cancer symptoms. In fact, men who develop prostate cancer may never exhibit signs and symptoms of prostate cancer, even during advanced stages. The tumor associated with adenocarcinoma of the prostate or prostatic adenocarcinoma is so small, that men do not experience symptoms. The symptoms listed below occur more commonly with BPH or prostatitis.

Yale Study: Prostate cancer treatment may do more harm than good in older men

From Yale News, February 27, 2012:

Treatment is not always warranted for older men with prostate cancer and a short life expectancy, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the Feb. 27 Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Treatment can do more harm than good in some instances,” said senior author on the study Dr. Cary Gross, associate professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

“Among men who are older and have less aggressive forms of prostate cancer, their cancer is unlikely to progress or cause them harm in their remaining years.”

Gross and his team analyzed nine years of Medicare data and found that over the past decade, there has been a trend towards higher use of curative treatment for prostate cancer among men with certain types of tumors and a short life expectancy. The study included 39,270 patients between the ages of 67 and older.