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Specialists have presented a few steps which will help patients determine if they have prostate cancer.
STATES CHRONICLE – Specialists explain some signs which could indicate the existence of prostate cancer. Every terrible cancer diagnosis informs the patient that certain steps need to be followed to find a suitable treatment for the disease. However, another important part of the treatment is establishing the location and the quantity of cancer in the body through cancer staging.
This technique will help the patient determine exactly what treatment plan he or she needs and for how long. The process of staging used to analyze prostate cancer helps the doctor uncover the size of the tumor and where it has spread if this could be the case. The reasons for which cancer staging is necessary are the following ones: the doctor will be able to decide which treatment is the most suitable considering the how big and how spread in the body the tumor is; he can also state the chances of recovery.
What is more, due to cancer staging, the medical staff will be enabled to find clinical trials suitable for the patient who may want to join in one. When somebody’s diagnosis is prostate cancer, then the staging process will rely on the results of the imaging tests, biopsies, and PSA blood tests. This type of staging cancer is called clinical staging.
The PSA blood test enables the doctor to see the amount of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) present in the blood. The prostate gland has both healthy and cancerous tissues which are both responsible for producing the protein known as PSA. If the levels of PSA are high, then the cancer is advanced. After establishing this, the doctor will also want to determine how fast did the levels of PSA had risen from a test to another.
If the increase of the levels was registered to happen at a more rapid pace, then this could be the proof that the tumor is extremely aggressive. By doing a biopsy, it can enable any doctor to indicate the percentage of the prostate which is affected. To determine the nature of the cancer cells, the doctor can undergo a biopsy to unveil the Gleason score. This test will show correctly, on a scale from 2 to 10, how similar a cancerous cell is a normal one when analyzed under the microscope.
If the score indicates a value smaller than 6, then the cancer is advancing very slow, not aggressively attacking the immune system. Patients should all be informed of all these useful methods to help them lead a normal life again.
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