Prostate cancer is more common in older men than in younger men. But more often, younger men are being diagnosed with prostate cancer, also often known as early-onset prostate cancer.
The average age for the primary diagnosis of prostate cancer is 68. In the US, about 10% of men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer are under the age of 55. teens Or as a young adult, although this is amazingly rare.
Worldwide, there was a rise in early-onset prostate cancer amongst men aged 15 to 40 years.
Experts aren't sure why the rise has occurred. It could also be related to certain risk aspects. It may be as a result of changes in its assessment methodology. Screening is more frequent, and there’s more awareness that prostate cancer can occur in younger men.
It remains to be unclear why young men develop prostate cancer.
There appears to be a link between your genes and early-onset prostate cancer. Researchers have to do more studies to see if exposure to cancer-causing agents resembling obesity, physical activity, HPV infection, and environmental aspects play a task.
Doctors think the kind of prostate cancer you get at a young age could also be different from the kind of prostate cancer you get later and are doing research to learn more.
If you’re diagnosed with prostate cancer at a young age, it’s more more likely to be at a more advanced stage. You are also more more likely to have a lower survival rate than middle-aged men and older men.
In the US, the common 5-year survival rate for prostate cancer is between 95% and 100% for men aged 40-80 years.
For younger men, the 5-year survival rate is lower. For men aged 25-34, it's 80%. For men aged 20-29, it's 50%. For men aged 15-25, it’s 30%.
There are several treatment options for early-onset prostate cancer. Your treatment will probably be based in your age, stage, symptoms and overall health.
With older men, doctors may recommend waiting to treat prostate cancer to see if it gets worse to avoid unintended effects that affect quality of life. This is known as lively surveillance. A physician monitors the cancer with PSA tests, exams and biopsies, and chooses treatment if it has progressed.
But this is amazingly rare. Your doctor will most definitely recommend starting treatment instantly because, as a youngster, you may have a few years ahead of you. Close surveillance isn’t common for younger men, even those with stage I prostate cancer.
If the cancer is localized, which implies it hasn't spread beyond your prostate, you will have surgery called a radical prostatectomy to remove it before it spreads.
During surgery, your doctor removes your prostate, including your prostate gland and surrounding tissues. Your doctor may remove your pelvic lymph nodes. Your surgery could also be open, laparoscopic, or robot-assisted.
Radiation therapy uses X-rays to destroy cancer cells. Radiation could also be used to focus on cancer in your prostate, or other areas if it has spread to different parts of your prostate area.
There are two types: external beam radiation, which a technician injects outside your body, and brachytherapy, which a physician injects into your prostate.
Your doctor may recommend radiation after surgery in the event that they see that the cancer has spread outside of your prostate during surgery. They may recommend it in case your PSA level remains to be detectable a couple of months after your surgery.
Testosterone helps prostate cancer cells grow. Hormone therapy stops your body from making testosterone or stops it from reaching cancer cells.
Your hormone therapy may include drugs that stop your body from making testosterone, drugs that prevent testosterone from reaching cancer cells, or other drugs that help control testosterone.
If your PSA level or Gleason rating shows that you simply are at high risk of reoccurrence, your doctor may recommend hormone therapy. Hormone therapy is commonly used alone for stage IV prostate cancer.
Your doctor may recommend combining it with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or surgery, which is less common.
If your prostate cancer has spread to other parts of your body or hormone therapy doesn't work, your doctor may recommend chemotherapy. Chemotherapy slows the expansion of cancer cells.
Chemotherapy involves anti-cancer drugs delivered through your bloodstream to the cancer cells. You could also be given drugs right into a vein, or it’s possible you’ll take them by mouth. You could have chemo in cycles, with periods of treatment after which periods of rest. This is commonly 2-3 weeks per cycle.
Chemotherapy slows the expansion of cancer, helps you reside longer, and may help with symptoms.
If your prostate cancer spreads, or if you may have prostate cancer without many symptoms nevertheless it isn’t responding to hormone therapy, your doctor may recommend immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy teaches your immune system to acknowledge and destroy cancer cells.
You could have a cancer vaccine called sipuleucel-T (Provenge), which boosts your immune system to specifically goal and attack prostate cancer cells. It doesn't stop prostate cancer from growing, nevertheless it does appear to enable you live longer.
With targeted therapy, your doctor uses drugs to attack weaknesses within the cancer cells.
The drugs don’t harm your normal cells, but they prevent cancer cells from growing, dividing, repairing themselves, or communicating with other cells.
With targeted drug therapy, it’s possible you’ll take pills by mouth twice a day.
Your doctor may recommend a mixture of treatments, resembling radical prostatectomy and external beam radiation, or brachytherapy and external beam radiation.
Prostate cancer treatment often causes unintended effects that may occur to young men, resembling:
- Difficulty getting and keeping an erection
- Low sperm production
- Leakage of urine
- Changes in the dimensions of your penis
Infertility is common. This happens after surgery as a surgeon removes your prostate and seminal vesicles, which carry sperm out of your urethra and out of your penis during ejaculation. Radiation also changes your semen and makes it harder in your semen to move sperm.
Talk to your doctor should you are concerned about unintended effects. They may recommend these options:
Sperm banking. If you would like to have children after your treatment, you may attempt to store your sperm before your surgery. Your medical team will freeze your semen (which comprises sperm) in liquid nitrogen. Later, they’ll thaw the semen so you need to use it for artificial insemination. After this procedure, as much as 50% of your sperm will grow back.
Your doctor may remove your sperm directly out of your testicles. Your medical team can obtain it out of your testicular tissue. Then they inject it into an egg, and if an embryo forms, they’ll implant it into the lady's uterine wall.
Nerve-sparing prostatectomy. Your doctor may do that procedure during surgery, which preserves the nerves on each side of your prostate. You need these nerves for an erection. Prostatectomy isn’t at all times an option. Talk to your doctor about whether this might give you the results you want.