Search for tag: "prostate cancer screening"

Kim: Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, but how do you know if you are one of those men with a high risk of developing the disease? That story is up next on The Scope.

Announcer: With the latest news and research from Huntsman Cancer Institute this is the Cancer Care Update.

Kim: A new study finds that when it comes to prostate cancer, your family matters. You could be at higher risk not only if your father had it, but even if a relative you have never even met had it. Lisa Cannon-Albright at the Huntsman Cancer Institute is the senior author on the study published in The Journal Prostate.

Lisa: My goal was to try to use available information to estimate a particular man's risk of prostate cancer, and the data that I wanted to use was his own family history.

Kim: Instead of asking thousands of men their family history, Cannon-Albright and colleagues used a resource called The Utah Population Database. It contains a computerized genealogy linked to medical information for over 7.3 million Utahans including those that have cancer. She says what they found was that having a first degree relative such as a father, brother or son, doubles your risk for getting prostate cancer. But surprisingly risk also increases by having a second or third degree relative such as an uncle, grandfather, cousin, or even great-grandfather with the disease.

Lisa: Most people would agree that if you have a first degree relative affected with prostate cancer that your risk must be higher than it is for other men in the population. But we found that second degree relatives and even third degree relatives, if you have them in your family history constellation you are also at increased risk.

Woman: So even just one?

Lisa: Yes, even just one.

Kim: Cannon-Albright says Doctors should not only pay attention to the men on your father's side of the family, but also on your mother's.

Lisa: The relative risk was exactly the same whether the family history was on your mother's side or your father's side.

Kim: Knowing your family history and whether this increases your risk for prostate cancer will help your doctor develop a health monitoring plan specific for you. For Cancer Care Update, I'm Kim Schuske with Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Announcer: For more resources from the cancer care and research experts, Huntsman Cancer Institute, go to HuntsmanCancer.org. The Cancer Care Update is a co-production with TheScopeRadio.com University of Utah Health Sciences Radio.

Interviewer: If you're a man and you live long enough, prostate cancer is going to likely be part of your life. It can be really confusing. When do you get screened? What does a positive screening mean? What should you do then? We're going to talk about these things and more coming up next on The Scope.

Announcer: Health information from expects, supported by research. From University of Utah Health, this is TheScopeRadio.com.

Interviewer: Prostate cancer is one of the most common men's cancers, and although it likely won't kill you if you're diagnosed it can have very negative impacts on your quality of life. That's why you should get screened. Learn about the facts now with Dr. Jonathan Tward from Huntsman Cancer Institute. He's a prostate cancer expert. Let's start out with how effective is prostate cancer screening?

Dr. Jonathan Tward: We think that we are usually picking up the diagnosis 10 to 15 years in advance of when someone might feel a problem.

Interviewer: Oh, really? So, it's a cancer that's easily detectable?

Dr. Jonathan Tward: Easily detectable, although even that is controversial. We do have a screening test that helps guide us on whether or not we should do additional testing like a biopsy to prove it, but we are in fact able very early on to detect prostate cancer.

Interviewer: Is there a certain age where I should start becoming more aware of it?

Dr. Jonathan Tward: Guidelines are kind of evolving right now in terms of what age people should really start concerning themselves with thinking more about it. As a general principle, we think that around age 50 men should start bringing it to the forefront of their thinking. Digital rectal examinations are one common way to screen for this cancer. The PSA test is another thing. We usually start advocating that at age 50. What is interesting is that if you look at autopsies on people, starting at age 30 10% of people will have prostate cancer in their prostate and won't know it. This is if you just happen to autopsy someone killed for another reason. The risk goes up by about 10% per decade of life, so by age 50 one would expect 30% of people to have cancer in their prostate, and it goes up by 10% each decade. Once you are in your 60s or 70s you almost have a greater than 50/50 chance that you harbor this cancer. Many of these cancers will not require treatment. Some of them can be safely observed. This is part of the problem with screening. We often detect cancers in men that can be safely observed and sometimes over-treat them, and on the opposite side of the coin we often pick up very aggressive cancers that absolutely need to be treated to preserve quality of life such as urologic bother.

Interviewer: It sounds like you could have prostate cancer and it's not a problem.

Dr. Jonathan Tward: That's true. In fact, the vast majority of people being diagnosed today have no physical symptoms of the cancer because it is being detected with this 10 to 15 year lead time from the PSA test.

Interviewer: So could I go my whole life having prostate cancer but never needing treatment because it just never turns into anything?

Dr. Jonathan Tward: Chances are you will do that.

Interviewer: Wow. Really? Should that concern me?

Dr. Jonathan Tward: Well, I do think it should concern you. It sort of goes back to this issue of one in six men are being diagnosed with cancer. But, if you want to talk about it from a different kind of number, we diagnose in the United States approximately 250,000 men with cancer each year. Maybe about 35,000 die of the disease. What that implies is that the majority of people are either cured or able to live well with their cancer although they might have to live with side effects of their treatments, and maybe only 10% or 15% actually die of the disease. But, part of the problem with prostate cancer, and I think the confusion especially when it talks to should we screen and should we treat it, is when you look at these statistics, death from prostate cancer, it's clear that we're very good at keeping men alive with prostate cancer. I argue that the reason we should try to screen it, and treat it, and cure it is to try to prevent men from living a lifetime of side effects from the cancer or from the treatment. To me that is really the utility in identifying this cancer.

Announcer: Have a question about a medical procedure? Want to learn more about a health condition? With over 2,000 interviews with our physicians and specialists, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find what you want to know. Check it out at TheScopeRadio.com.

updated: June 12, 2019
originally published: December 6, 2013