Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Prostate Cancer Essay

Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate cancer are the most common diseases of the genitourinary system in men, which occurs in every second man over 60 years of age. Still, they can also occur at the age of 40-50 (Chang, Kirby, & Challacombe, 2012). The key manifestations of BPH are painful urination, feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder, weakening of the urine stream, and an increase in the duration of urination.Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Prostate Cancer Essay

Often there is acute retention of urine, in which self-urination becomes impossible, and emergency medical care is required. The main causes of BPH are age-related hormonal changes in the body of men. Elkahwaji (2013) notes that inflammatory mediators may also generate BPH. In its turn, prostate cancer symptoms can be conditionally divided into three groups: symptoms of urine outflow from the bladder (intravesical obstruction), symptoms related directly to the growth of the prostate tumor (blood in urine and semen, erectile dysfunction, perineum, etc.), and symptoms associated with metastatic prostate cancer (Miah & Catto, 2014).Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Prostate Cancer Essay

These patients need precise and effective screening. For BPH, uroflowmetry, transabdominal ultrasound, digital rectal examination (DRE), etc. can be utilized. To differentiate between cancer prostate and BPH, one should conduct Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) testing. This is the only way to diagnose cancer accurately. PSA is the most important tumor marker, the study of which is necessary for diagnosing and monitoring of prostate cancer. Taken in combination, “a normal PSA, PSA density, and DRE can give reasonable confidence with regards to excluding clinically significant prostate cancer” (Chang et al., 2012, p. 13).