About Prostate Cancer

     Like all cancers, prostate cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth. Cells become cancerous when they divide unpredictably and form tumors. As tumors grow, they squeeze surrounding healthy tissue and use oxygen that would normally be used by healthy cells. They also secrete protein signals that initiate the formation of new blood vessels. Tumors can also invade other organs and form secondary tumors elsewhere in the body. This process is called metastasis.

     Prostate cancer can be relatively harmless or extremely aggressive. Some prostate tumors are slow growing, causing few clinical symptoms. In these cases, a patient will often die with prostate cancer rather than from prostate cancer. Aggressive tumors spread rapidly to the lymph nodes, other organs and especially bone. Researchers are currently developing ways to categorize forms of the disease early in their development.

     Doctors diagnose prostate cancer through physical examinations, laboratory tests, imaging technologies and analysis of tissue samples. The most common diagnostic technique is the digital rectal exam (DRE), in which a physician inserts a gloved finger in the rectum to assess the texture and size of the rear portion of the gland. The PSA test, which became widely used in the early 1990s, measures levels of an enzyme produced by the prostate. Doctors also use ultrasound technology to visualize the organ and biopsies to study prostate tissue samples under a microscope.

     The growth of prostate cancer can be slowed by cutting off the supply of male hormones like testosterone. (Dr. Charles B. Huggins earned a Nobel Prize for medicine in 1966 for his discovery of this phenomenon.) However, prostate cancer eventually develops the ability to grow and spread no matter what the level of circulating hormones. At this stage, when prostate cancer becomes hormone refractory, it becomes particularly lethal and difficult to control.