Reply #140: To all men age 40 and over please at the earliest setup an

[BenDavid]

appointment to have not only a prostate exam but also the PSA blood test. Anything to insure one's good health.

MEMBER QUESTION:
What are the signs of prostate cancer?

MARKS:
That's an excellent question. The biggest problem with prostate cancer is that there really are absolutely no early warning signs. As the prostate develops the cancer they tend to be very small. They grow very slowly and this is the best time to identify it and treat it. But it's also the hardest time to find it because you're not going to usually have symptoms of obstruction, you're not going to be getting up at night, you're not going to be urinating frequently. It's very rare to have blood or any warning signs, which is why organized medicine continues to encourage all men to see their doctor for a prostate exam and PSA annually.

One of the biggest problems that I encounter is that men will go to their doctor and either refuse the prostate exam because of discomfort or embarrassment or the doctor, for reasons I still don't know, will also just not do the prostate exam and this is very, very dangerous because, again, these small little cancers are the easiest to treat and the most likely to provide a normal life span with normal cure if we can find it early. So it's important to see your doctor because there are no warning signs of early prostate cancer.

Ben David