How to diagnose prostate cancer

There are no special symptoms in the early stage of prostate cancer. In clinical practice, many patients in the late stage go to the orthopedics department for bone pain, but they find that their prostate is diseased. Finally, they have to go to the urology department for treatment, only to find out that it is prostate cancer. Nowadays, more and more patients are beginning to pay attention to how to detect it in the early stage. Although there are no specific symptoms in the early stage, early prostate cancer can still be detected through some screening work and clinical physical examinations. How do we diagnose it?

1. Rectal examination: Pay attention to the size, shape, hardness, lubricity and presence of nodules and the extent of tumor infiltration of the prostate. I don’t know if we know that rectal examination is a common and simple examination method. If irregular nodules are found in the prostate, further rectal ultrasound examination, serum prostate-specific antigen (pSA) and even prostate tissue puncture biopsy should be performed.

2. Physical examination: mainly related to the examination of the urogenital system, such as checking whether there is a full bladder on the pubic bone, the tension of the anal sphincter, the bulbocavernosus reflex, the motor and sensory function of the lower limbs, and rectal examination to evaluate the size, texture, shape of the prostate and the presence of prostate cancer.

3. Through transrectal ultrasound examination, doctors can find out whether there are nodules in the patient's prostate. When nodules appear in the prostate, but the nodules are small or they grow inside the gland, they are usually not felt through rectal examination. However, such abnormal nodules can be found through transrectal ultrasound examination, so that prostate cancer can be discovered early. In addition, through transrectal ultrasound examination, doctors can also determine the size of the patient's tumor and whether the tumor has invaded the capsule of the prostate, which is very helpful for the treatment of prostate cancer.

4 The most common and earliest clinical manifestation of prostate cancer bone metastasis is bone pain. Continuous dull pain often affects the patient's appetite and daily rhythm, and even the patient becomes increasingly thin and miserable. Because the bones are eaten away by tumor cells little by little, the transported bones are prone to pathological fractures. If the tumor cells invade the patient's spinal vertebrae, then the collapse of the vertebrae will cause symptoms of spinal cord decompression, which will make treatment more difficult. Prostate cancer in its early stages is usually sensitive to male androgen resistance therapy. However, as the disease progresses, this androgen resistance therapy will gradually fail, and prostate cancer will also develop to the late stage.

The diagnosis of prostate cancer is based on many factors, but the final diagnosis still requires the actual sight of tumor cells, so prostate biopsy is now an essential examination and the "gold standard" for diagnosis.