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What Causes Prostate Cancer In Young Males

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What Causes Bladder Control Problems In Women

What Causes of Prostate Cancer in Men

Certain life events and health problems can lead to stress incontinence in women by weakening the pelvic floor muscles

Weak pelvic floor muscles can make it hard for your bladder to keep urine in during stress incontinence. Stress incontinence occurs when some of your movementscoughing, sneezing, laughing, or physical activityput pressure on your bladder and cause urine to leak. A weak pelvic floor can also cause fecal incontinence, or bowel control problems.

Diagnosing Benign Prostate Enlargement

You might have several different tests to find out if you have an enlarged prostate.

A GP may do some of these tests, such as a urine test, but others might need to be done at a hospital.

Some tests may be needed to rule out other conditions that cause similar symptoms to BPE, such as prostate cancer.

How Common Is Prostate Cancer

About one in nine men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis during his lifetime. Prostate cancer is second only to skin cancer as the most common cancer affecting males. Close to 200,000 American men receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer every year. There are many successful treatments and some men dont need treatment at all. Still, approximately 33,000 men die from the disease every year.

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Genetic Testing For Prostate Cancer

You may hear a lot about genetics or genomics. Both terms are related to genes and cell DNA, but they are different. These tests are being used to learn more about the DNA of cancer cells, and link DNA mutations with treatments. In the future, genetic testing may be the first step doctors take when diagnosing prostate cancer.

What Are The Symptoms Of Enlarged Prostate In Young Men

What Are The Symptoms Of Prostrate Cancer

The symptoms of enlarged prostate in young men may begin with difficulty with urination in the early stages of the disease condition and if not appropriately diagnosed and promptly treated different types of complications may arise based on the extent of the inflammation and the severity of the condition. Enlarged prostate in young men may not be evident clearly but gradually advances over a period of time which may be months to years before an individual can actually feel the symptoms. Some of the common symptoms which may point towards an enlarged prostate in young men are:

Poor Urinary Stream: An individual with an Enlarged Prostate will have symptoms of poor urinary stream. This is due to the urethra being strangled by the Enlarged Prostate. Not only will the individual have a poor urinary stream, he will also feel that he has not completely emptied the bladder and will also have pain with urination.Incomplete Bladder Emptying: Since Enlarged Prostate causes the urethra to get strangled and under a lot of pressure not all the urine that is collected in the bladder is able to flow through the urethra resulting in incomplete voiding. This results in an individual to go to the bathroom more times than normal and still have a sensation that he has not completely emptied the bladder.

Pain with Urination: Enlarged Prostate causes pain when urination and is a common symptom of this condition.

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Watchful Waiting And Active Surveillance

Watchful waiting is an adequate approach in patients who are at low risk of death from prostate cancer because of their limited life expectancy due to severe comorbidities., Watchful waiting resulted in similar overall survival when compared with radical prostatectomy, but disease-specific survival was better in patients who had undergone surgery. For some patients it turns out to be hard to persist on a watchful waiting policy, and many men drop out and seek active treatment within several years, mostly when PSA elevation is noted.

Active surveillance is a novel and fascinating approach to distinguish between patients who are at higher risk and need active therapy and patients who are at low risk for disease progression., This approach avoids the risks of therapy while allowing early detection of those patients who are prone to progress. In these high-risk individuals, delayed active treatment is offered. Periodic monitoring of the PSA serum level, digital rectal exam, and repeated prostate biopsies are performed in patients who are on active surveillance, and active therapy is started when predefined threshold values are reached. This concept makes it possible to offer curative treatment to individuals who are at high risk for disease progression as indicated by active surveillance parameters.

Can Having Sex Often Affect Your Risk Of Prostate Cancer

Possibly. Researchers have found that there may be a link between having frequent ejaculations and a lower-than-average risk of prostate cancer. In one study, men who ejaculated more than 21 times per month over their lifetime had one-fourth the risk of prostate cancer compared to men who reported four to seven ejaculations per month.

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Are Prostate Problems Always A Sign Of Prostate Cancer

Not all growths in the prostate are cancerous, and not all prostate problems indicate cancer. Other conditions that cause similar prostate cancer symptoms include:

  • Benign prostatic hyperplasia : At some point, almost every man will develop benign prostatic hyperplasia . This condition enlarges the prostate gland but doesnt increase cancer risk. The swollen gland squeezes the urethra and blocks the flow of semen and urine. Medications, and sometimes surgery, can help.
  • Prostatitis: Men younger than 50 are more prone to prostatitis, inflammation and swelling of the prostate gland. Bacterial infections are often the cause. Treatments include antibiotics or other medications.

Inflammation Of The Prostate

What Causes of Prostate Cancer in Men

Some studies have suggested that prostatitis may be linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer, but other studies have not found such a link. Inflammation is often seen in samples of prostate tissue that also contain cancer. The link between the two is not yet clear, and this is an active area of research.

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Risk Factors You Cant Control

Age: The risk of developing prostate cancer increases with age. One in 10,000 men younger than 40 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, but one in 15 men in their 60s will be diagnosed with the disease.

Family history: Being born with a gene mutation is one of the unavoidable risks of prostate cancer. Two of them include the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. BRCA and other inherited mutations, including HOXB13 and DNA mismatch repair genes, may explain why prostate cancer runs in families. Having a father or brother with prostate cancer may double a mans risk, especially if that relative was diagnosed before age 55.

Hormones: The level of male sex hormones, called androgens, may be higher in some men than others. Higher levels of androgensmainly testosteronehave been linked to a higher risk of prostate cancer. Men who use testosterone therapy are at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer, as an increase in testosterone stimulates the growth of the prostate gland.

Prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia : This condition may be associated with increased risk of prostate cancer. PIN is a condition in which prostate gland cells look abnormal when examined with a microscope. Its not necessarily linked with any symptoms. Nearly half of men will be diagnosed with PIN before age 50.

Race: Studies show that African-American men are about 70 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer in their lifetime than Caucasian or Hispanic men.

What Is An Enlarged Prostate

The prostate is an essential gland in the male reproductive system. It contributes to the semen volume and synthesizes a substance that supports sperm cells.

This gland is below the urinary bladder, surrounding the urethra. In the bladder neck. Thus, as it grows, it can put pressure over the urethra or the urinary bladder. However, what is an enlarged prostate? Is it the same as prostate cancer?

An enlarged prostate is simply a gland that increased in size. It is not caused by cancer. Another medical term is benign prostatic enlargement, where benign means theres no cancer. Another name is benign prostatic hyperplasia .

When we talk about hyperplasia, we refer to an increase in number and not size. Thus, in prostatic hyperplasia, there are more prostate cells . However, they remain the same size as normal prostate tissue. Such an increase in the number of cells causes an enlarged prostate. It usually starts in men after the age of 40. But they typically find out when they are near their 50s .

In some cases, an enlarged prostate grows evenly. In other instances, prostate growth is more irregular. When the overgrowth is near the center, it presses the urethra on the outside.

As a result, the urethra becomes narrow, compromising the urine flow. As a result, 1 out of 3 men over 50 years old report urinary symptoms. In the majority of cases, they are caused by an enlarged prostate gland .

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Rare Atypical Prostate Cancers In Very Young Men

One very rare form of prostate cancer, classified as a sarcoma, is typically found in younger men between 35 and 60 years old. This type of cancer makes up less than 0.1 percent of all cases of primary prostate cancer . Sarcomas can infiltrate the soft tissues in the body. These tissues include our muscles and nerves. Since this tissue is essentially everywhere in our body, sarcomas can develop just about anywhere.

Sarcomas can break away from their original locations and spread to the bones or lungs. Two of the more common types of prostate cancer sarcomas are leiomyosarcomas and rhabdomyosarcoma which can affect very young men, including children. The important thing to note however, is that these atypical prostate cancers are incredibly rare.7-9

In Teens And Young Men Prostate Canceron The Rise

Whats The Symptoms Of Prostate Cancer

Nick Mulcahy

Prostate cancer incidence in older adolescent and young adult men has increased in most countries, but the cause for the rise is uncertain, according to a new study September 25 in the journal Cancer.

“Men as young as 17 years are experiencing an increasing incidence of carcinoma of the prostate in much of the world,” write an international team of authors, led by Archie Bleyer, MD, Oregon Health and Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute in Portland.

They report that the incidence of prostate cancer has increased in all groups between ages 15 and 40 years and increased globally at a steady rate averaging 2% per year since 1990 .

However, prostate cancer is rare in young men, with incidence rates not rising above about 0.2 cases per 100,000 men until age 35 and being even lower at younger ages, per US data from the last two decades notably, the rate spikes dramatically between ages 35 and 39, approaching 1.8 cases.

However, at age 70, the rate is about 800 per 100,000 men.

Notably, in the United States, young men were > 6 times more likely than older men to have metastatic disease at diagnosis. They also had very poor 5-year survival rates, the study found.

The incidence increase is “disturbing” and the potentially related factors are “poorly understood,” said Suzanne M. Miller, PhD, professor of cancer prevention and control, Fox Chase Cancer Center/Temple University Health System, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in an email to Medscape Medical News.

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Both Us And Global Data

The new study is based on US data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program and on global data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations Global Burden of Disease resource. Findings in the new study encompass North, South, and Central America , Europe, Asia, and Africa.

From 1990 to 2017, prostate cancer incidence in three age groups has steadily increased in all four study regions, the authors report.

Notably, the mortality rate of prostate cancer in these age groups did not mimic the incidence trend in any of these regions, having decreased or remained stable. There were some exceptions for 2016 and 2017, the most recent years of available data, during which the death rate increased in some regions and age groups.

There are a lot of unknowns about the incidence increase of prostate cancer in young men including its cause, say the authors.

They cite a long list of possible reasons for the increase, some linked to observational evidence and some not. One associated factor in the US will be familiar to observers of prostate cancer trends: prostate-specific antigen testing.

The authors point to a recent study that found that from 2000 through 2015 in the US, 2% of men aged 30 to 39 and 5% to 6% of those aged 40 to 49 years who had health insurance were screened with PSA tests, contrary to all existing practice guidelines. :S155)

What is certain to the researchers is that young American men with prostate cancer have dire survival rates.

Prostate Cancer In Young Men: More Frequent More Aggressive

Date:
University of Michigan Health System
Summary:
The number of younger men diagnosed with prostate cancer has increased nearly 6-fold in the last 20 years, and the disease is more likely to be aggressive in these younger men, according to a new analysis. Typically, prostate cancer occurs more frequently as men age into their 70s or 80s. However, the researchers found that when prostate cancer strikes at a younger age, it’s likely because the tumor is growing quickly.

The number of younger men diagnosed with prostate cancer has increased nearly 6-fold in the last 20 years, and the disease is more likely to be aggressive in these younger men, according to a new analysis from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Typically, prostate cancer occurs more frequently as men age into their 70s or 80s. Many prostate cancers are slow-growing and many older men diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer will end up dying from causes other than prostate cancer.

But, the researchers found, when prostate cancer strikes at a younger age, it’s likely because the tumor is growing quickly.

“Early onset prostate cancer tends to be aggressive, striking down men in the prime of their life. These fast-growing tumors in young men might be entirely missed by screening because the timeframe is short before they start to show clinical symptoms,” says Kathleen A. Cooney, M.D., professor of internal medicine and urology at the University of Michigan.

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It Can Be More Aggressive In Younger Men

Younger men dont routinely undergo prostate-specific antigen and rectal exams until the recommended age of about 50. Prostate cancer in men usually has no physical symptoms in its earlier stages. As a result, if aggressive prostate cancer is eventually diagnosed in men younger than 55, it has often already progressed to a later-stage cancer and is therefore more difficult to treat.

Masturbation And Prostate Cancer Risk

Symptoms Of Prostate Cancer In Young Men

Masturbation Frequency Linked to Prostate Risk in 20s, Protection in 50s

Jan. 27, 2009 Frequent masturbation in young men is linked to higher risk of early prostate cancer, but it lowers prostate cancer risk for men in their 50s, a study shows.

High levels of male sex hormones, or androgens, may increase a mans risk of prostate cancer. But different studies of this question, done in different ways, have reached different conclusions.

To look at the question in a new way, a team of researchers at Englands University of Nottingham looked at whether men with more intense sex drives were at higher risk of prostate cancer.

Polyxeni Dimitropoulou, PhD Rosalind Eeles, PhD, FRCP and Kenneth R. Muir, PhD, obtained detailed sexual histories from 840 men. About half the men got prostate cancer by age 60, and about half did not have cancer.

The findings were surprising. Sexual intercourse did not affect prostate cancer risk. But frequent masturbation did in different ways, at different times of life.

Frequent masturbation during mens 20s and 30s increased their risk of prostate cancer, Dimitropoulou tells WebMD. But men in their 50s who masturbated frequently had decreased risk.

Of course, masturbation frequency is relative.

For men in their 50s, frequent masturbation was one or more times per week. Compared to same-age men who reported never masturbating, 50-something frequent masturbators had a 70% lower risk of prostate cancer.

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Diabetes And Heart Disease

As we grow older, the risk of metabolic problems and prostate enlargement increases. However, studies suggest a more direct association between diabetes and BPH.

Patients with diabetes and an enlarged prostate have a higher chance of developing severe symptoms. This is maybe because both conditions cause urinary symptoms that overlap.

However, other studies show that diabetes patients have a higher median growth of the prostate gland. The association is not very clear, but it seems evident now there is a link between BPH and insulin.

Additionally, consider that type 2 diabetes can promote BPH through vascular disorders affecting the prostate. In a model of experimental hypoxia, researchers found that abnormal blood flow can stimulate prostate growth. This tissue responds to hypoxia by secreting growth factors to promote angiogenesis .

Other vascular problems are positively associated with prostate health, toofor example, ischemic heart disease. According to studies, the frequency of coronary artery disease is higher in men with prostate enlargement. Moreover, researchers suggest that these conditions are closely related to one another.

The association still remains elusive, but it is apparently explained by atherosclerosis, which causes an abnormal flow pattern and hypoxia in the prostate. This pathologic condition triggers the release of growth factors and causes an enlarged prostate .

What About Trans People

People assigned male at birth can develop prostate cancer whether they remain male or not.

Trans women who use hormone therapy such as estrogenmay have a lower risk, but the risk is still present.

Anyone assigned male at birth should speak to their doctor about screening for prostate cancer.

Knowing the stage of prostate cancer can help a person understand what to expect, and it will inform decisions about treatment. We list the stages below:

Stage 0: Precancerous cells are present, but they only affect a small area and are slow growing.

Localized : Cancer is only present in the prostate gland. Effective treatment is possible at this stage.

Regional : Cancer has spread to nearby tissues.

Distant : Cancer has spread to other parts of the body, such as the lungs or bones.

If a male has symptoms that may indicate prostate cancer, the doctor will likely:

  • ask about symptoms
  • ask about personal and medical history
  • conduct a blood test to assess PSA levels
  • carry out a urine test to look for other biomarkers
  • carry out a physical examination, which may include a digital rectal exam

During a DRE, the doctor will check manually for any abnormalities of the prostate with their finger.

Learn more about prostate exams here.

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