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Facts about Prostate Cancer
What is the Prostate?
Early-stage prostate cancer means that cancer cells are found
only in your prostate gland. Compared with many other
cancers, prostate cancer tends to grow more slowly. This
means that it can take 10 to 30 years before a tumor gets big
enough to be found or cause problems (or symptoms).
Older men who have prostate cancer often die of something
else, not of prostate cancer.
- Prostate cancer is most often diagnosed in men 65
and older, although younger men can be diagnosed
with it as well.
- By age 80, more than half of all men have some cancer
in their prostate.
- African American men tend to be diagnosed at
younger ages with more aggressive prostate cancer
than men of other races.
Today, prostate cancer is most often found in earlier stages.
There are a number of treatment options available.
The prostate is a small gland in a man's reproductive
system. It helps make semen - the milky fluid that
carries sperm from the testicles through the penis
when a man ejaculates.
The prostate is about the size and shape of a walnut.
It lies low in the pelvis, below the bladder and in front
of the rectum. The prostate also encircles part of the
urethra, the tube that carries urine out of the bladder
and through the penis.
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