Understanding Early Warning Signs of Prostate Cancer

Dr. David A. Taub, a urologist and director of urologic oncology at the Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Cancer Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, part of Baptist Health, spoke with CURE for an interview in honor of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, observed annually each September.

As this year's awareness month comes to a close, Taub informs patients of the most common warning signs and symptoms of the disease, as well as explains the standard methods for diagnosing prostate cancer.

Transcript

What are the most common warning signs and symptoms of prostate cancer that patients should watch out for?

The PSA, which stands for prostate-specific antigen, blood test was made public in the late 1980s. Before that, screening was done with a digital rectal exam or a prostate examination. Consequently, we would see patients with advanced prostate cancer, who often had bone pain, bone fractures, blood in their urine, or difficulty urinating. While most people with these symptoms have a condition other than prostate cancer, that's how the disease presented itself a long time ago.

Since the advent of the PSA test in the late 1980s or early 1990s, prostate cancer is now caught much earlier in a screening format, similar to a colonoscopy. We can now detect it with just an elevated or changing blood test result.

[Moreover], the PSA is a test that most men between the ages of 50 and 70 get on a yearly basis as part of their routine physical examinations. Any change or elevation in that number can prompt a urology evaluation. Similarly, men should be getting a prostate examination, also known as a digital rectal examination or DRE, once a year.

Again, any abnormality found in those two tests would prompt a urology referral. This would lead to either a biopsy or, more commonly now, an MRI scan before the biopsy to make the prostate biopsies much more precise.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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