What Are the Symptoms of Prostate Cancer?
Prostate cancer affects one out of every seven men. It’s second only to skin cancer as the most common type of cancer among men, both in Los Angeles and all over the country. When you treat prostate cancer symptoms in their early stages, you have a chance to avoid invasive prostate cancer surgery.
Early Symptoms of Prostate Cancer in Men
The best way to detect prostate cancer early is to get a yearly physical, including a rectal exam, and to take a baseline prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test when you turn 50. However, PSA tests can be controversial because they have a high percentage of false positives. Also, elevated PSA levels don’t always mean that you need an immediate biopsy.
If your urologist or primary care doctor in Los Angeles detects elevated PSA levels, you have a couple of options:
- Wait for a biopsy. If you show no other symptoms of prostate cancer, such as a tumor that your doctor can feel during a rectal exam or any of the advanced prostate cancer symptoms mentioned below, you probably don’t need a biopsy yet.
- Test again in a few months. Ask your doctor whether you can take another PSA test in six months, plus additional periodic tests, to see whether your PSA levels trend upward. If they do, you should consider getting a biopsy to confirm whether or not you have prostate cancer.
- Watch and wait. Most prostate cancers grow very slowly, and unnecessary biopsies can cause difficulty with urination and sexual dysfunction. Ask your doctor whether you need treatment or whether it’s reasonable to watch and wait.
Advanced Prostate Cancer Symptoms and Signs
If you notice any of these symptoms of advanced prostate cancer, make an appointment with your doctor as soon as possible:
- Problems with urination. Talk to your doctor if you’re having trouble voiding your bladder, or if you notice that your urine stream comes out with a lot less force than usual.
- Pain and discomfort. If you feel pain in your pelvic area or in your thighs, hips, or lower back, make a doctor’s appointment. Also, talk to your doctor if you feel unexplained pain that feels like it’s in your bones.
- Erectile dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction doesn’t mean that you have prostate cancer. However, because of how it can impact your quality of life, it’s always worth discussing with your doctor.
- The presence of blood. Call your doctor if you notice blood in your urine stream or blood in your semen.
CyberKnife System Treatment in Los Angeles
If you’re like most men, you worry about the thought of having invasive prostate surgery. These procedures can damage nerves in your prostate area, which can cause urination difficulties and erectile dysfunction.
Prostate Movement
The challenge faced by all oncologists when treating the prostate with radiation or proton therapy is that the prostate continually moves throughout treatment. CyberKnife is the first and only technology that achieves sub-millimeter accuracy with combined advanced robotics, exclusive real-time tumor-tracking software, and continued image guidance throughout treatment to verify each beam is on target before it treats. CyberKnife is able to automatically and precisely correct when it is not. Other radiation treatments require the use of rectal balloons, large tracking devices implanted into the prostate, and a technique called gating in an attempt to better predict tumor movement. Due to less precise tracking methods, the other radiation treatments will affect the healthy surrounding tissues and increase patient side effects.
The CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System is clinically proven as a premier prostate cancer treatment device. It delivers high-powered, tightly focused pin-point radiation beams to kill prostate cancer cells, instead of cutting into your tissue. CyberKnife requires up to five short treatments, once per day, rather than the 43 treatments (eight weeks) of standard radiation, or seven weeks of Proton. It’s non-surgical, non-invasive, requires no anesthesia, and is completely painless. Here’s how it works:
- Delivers high doses of pinpoint radiation, accurate down to the sub-millimeter. Even the most effective radiation treatments for prostate cancer destroy both unhealthy cancer cells while causing minor damage to healthy tissue. Meanwhile, CyberKnife’s highly targeted radiation dosages spare healthy prostate cells from radiation damage with minimal side effects.
- Powered by advanced robotics. The CyberKnife’s intricate robotic design is able to targets prostate cancer from virtually any angle.
- Managed by sophisticated real-time image guidance software. The CyberKnife’s software controls its robotic movements with the utmost precision. This accuracy enables doctors to calculate and target your radiation dosage with incredible accuracy.
- Treats tumors in motion. Because the CyberKnife adjusts rapidly to even the smallest body movements, you can skip the uncomfortable restraints or compression devices.
Explore Your Treatment Options
If you have any questions regarding symptoms of prostate cancer please don’t hesitate to call our Los Angeles-based center at 626-768-1021 today to speak with one of our cancer specialists or to schedule an appointment.
If your doctor or urologist has already diagnosed you with prostate cancer, call our center immediately to set up an appointment so that we can discuss all of your radiation treatment options, including CyberKnife. If radiosurgery at a Los Angeles cancer center sounds like it might be the right treatment for you, schedule your consultation today.