Prostate Cancer

What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Prostate Cancer?

Screening measures ensure most prostate cancers are detected in their early stages when the patient experiences few or no symptoms. As the disease advances, the patient may notice one or more of the following signs and symptoms:

• A weak or numb sensation in the legs or feet
• Blood in the semen
• Blood in the urine
• Difficulty or problems urinating, such as a slow or weak urinary stream
• Erectile dysfunction
• Loss of bladder or bowel control (if the cancer is pressing on the spinal cord)
• Pain in the bones, such as the hips, spine, or ribs
• Unexplained weight loss

What Are the Causes and Risk Factors for Prostate Cancer?

Medical researchers are not clear on what causes prostate cancer to develop. However, it is known that the cancer begins to grow when cells in the prostate form with mutations in their DNA.

This causes them to multiply more rapidly and to live longer than normal, healthy cells. Over time, the cells grow out of control and create a tumor that, if left untreated, can sometimes invade nearby body parts and tissue.

The cancerous cells can also break away from the tumor and spread to distant areas of the body. When this happens, the cancer has metastasized.

Although the cause of prostate cancer is unknown, some risk factors increase a person’s likelihood of developing the disease. These include the following:

• Age, with people over 50 at an increased risk
• Family history, such as a parent, sibling, or other close blood relative who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer
• Genes that increase the risk of breast cancer, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, or a family history of breast cancer
• Obesity — people who are overweight are at an increased risk of a diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer

How Is Prostate Cancer Staged?

Staging prostate cancer helps doctors and patients understand how advanced the disease has become, whether it has spread, and, if so, how far.

Generally, the higher the stage, the more advanced the cancer.

Although not all doctors adhere to the same staging system, the most commonly used method for staging prostate cancer is the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) TNM system.

The TNM system for prostate cancer uses several data points to determine the cancer’s overall stage:

• The size or extent of the tumor, represented by the letter T
• Whether the cancer has spread to lymph nodes in close proximity, represented by the letter N
• Whether the cancer has spread or metastasized to distant areas of the body, represented by the letter M

Doctors may also consider the PSA level at the time of diagnosis and how likely the cancer is to spread aggressively, defined by the Grade Group, which is based on the Gleason score.

How We Treat Prostate Cancer Holistically

In a conventional context, surgery and radiation therapy are the most used treatments:

• Surgical intervention for prostate cancer involves either a prostatectomy, where the prostate is removed, or a radical prostatectomy, where the prostate and surrounding tissue are removed. In addition to the risks associated with all surgeries, complications of prostatectomy include bleeding, urinary tract infections, incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and the formation of cysts.
• Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays — much like X-rays — to kill cancer. Radiation therapy involves either surgically inserting radioactive seeds or pellets into or near the cancer or using a machine outside of the body to shoot radiation at the cancer. Side effects can include frequent, difficult, or painful urination, abdominal cramping, blood in the urine, diarrhea, fatigue, and erectile dysfunction.

Because of the adverse side effects of surgery and radiation therapy, many patients seek holistic therapies as an alternative or to implement alongside conventional treatment approaches.

Research suggests between 25 and 50 percent of prostate cancer patients leverage at least one complementary and alternative medicine modality.

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, we are here to help. At Brio-Medical, we believe in treating every patient as an individual, strengthening and uplifting the body so it can fight cancer and therapy side effects naturally.

We connect our patients with leading-edge, science-backed treatments that target cancer’s weaknesses.

If you would like to learn more about our holistic, non-toxic approach to prostate cancer treatment, please contact our patient care coordinators.

Prostate Cancer Resources:

• "Prostate Cancer Statistics." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/statistics/index.htm. Accessed September 9, 2022.
• Torborg, Liza. "Weekend Wellness: Gleason score indicates grade of prostate cancer." Mayo Clinic News Network, 24 January 2015. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/weekend-wellness-gleason-score-indicates-grade-of-prostate-cancer/.
• Chen, Fang-Zhi, and Xiao-Kun Zhao. “Prostate cancer: current treatment and prevention strategies.” Iranian Red Crescent medical journal vol. 15,4 (2013): 279-84. doi:10.5812/ircmj.6499
• "Prostatectomy." Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/prostatectomy/about/pac-20385198. Accessed September 9, 2022.
• Klempner, Samuel J, and Glenn Bubley. “Complementary and alternative medicines in prostate cancer: from bench to bedside?.” The oncologist vol. 17,6 (2012): 830-7. doi:10.1634/theoncologist.2012-0094
• Leslie, Stephen W., et al. “Prostate Cancer.” StatPearls, StatPearls Publishing, 3 July 2022.
• Litwin, Mark S, and Hung-Jui Tan. “The Diagnosis and Treatment of Prostate Cancer: A Review.” JAMA vol. 317,24 (2017): 2532-2542. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.7248