If you have recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, there is likely a great deal going through your mind. And among those thoughts in your head is a desire to know more about what you are dealing with and what you are going to have to do to treat and overcome your prostate cancer. Get to know some of the important facts about prostate cancer. Then, you can be sure that you go into the treatment process feeling informed and knowledgeable.
Prostate Cancer Is Very Common
One of the misconceptions about prostate cancer is that it doesn't affect many people. This is a part of why it is often diagnosed in the late stages rather than the early stages. Men simply do not believe that it they feel fine, there could be anything wrong. However, in the early stages, prostate cancer often does not cause any symptoms at all.
The reality about prostate cancer is that it affects millions of men in the United states every year. One in nine men will suffer from prostate cancer at some point in their lifetime. And for African American men, the risk is one in five of developing prostate cancer.
You Should Not Put Off Prostate Cancer Treatments
Many people think that prostate cancer is a less serious form of cancer for some reason. They think that it won't spread or that prostate cancer treatments can be put off until a more convenient time. However, prostate cancer is serious and should be dealt with immediately.
Recent studies have shown that prostate cancer surpasses breast cancer in the number of deaths the condition causes annually in England. While this is not a study involving the United States, it demonstrates how serious prostate cancer can be and why it should be dealt with as swiftly as possible.
There Are Many Prostate Cancer Treatment Options
Because prostate cancer is so common and serious, there are numerous treatments available to help a person combat the condition. Surgery and radiation therapy are two of the most common treatment options for prostate cancer. Oftentimes, they are combined to provide more effective and comprehensive treatment.
Radiation therapy can shrink a prostate tumor and make it possible to remove the tumor without removing the entire prostate. However, if the tumor growth is beyond the help of radiation therapy, surgery can be used to remove the entire prostate and radiation therapy can be used as a supportive treatment to destroy any hidden cancer cells left in the area.
Chemotherapy and hormone therapies are also options that may be considered. There are even biological treatments that are designed to boost your own immune system to target and destroy cancer cells in the body. Doctors will often start with the surgical and radiation therapy options and then move on to other treatment options should the originals be ineffective or not enough to completely eradicate the prostate cancer.
Now that you know a little bit more about prostate cancer and your treatment options, you can go into the next phases of your treatment process feeling informed and knowledgeable. For more information, visit websites like http://swoncology.net/.