Find out the signs and symptoms of prostate cancer from Cancer Research UK. Learn how prostate cancer is diagnosed and the tests needed to find out.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer/symptoms

In the video, Dr. Vincent Gnanapragasm from Cambridge University talks us through prostate cancer symptoms, signs and types:

"As the most common cancer in men understanding Prostate Cancer is vital. So I’ve come to Cambridge University hospital to speak with Dr. Vincent Gnanapragasam to find out how they go about diagnosing this common cancer.

Well Vincent, Prostate Cancer is notoriously difficult to diagnose isn’t it. Indeed, in fact Prostate Cancer most often has no symptoms. A man might go to his GP because he has notice a change in his urinary symptoms, getting up at night maybe or having difficulty passing water. And most often that’s due to a normal enlargement of the prostate as he gets older. In fact prostate cancer doesn’t cause any symptoms unless it is very advanced. In which case it might mimic some of those symptoms of an obstructed or large prostate. But if there are any concerns the first step is to go and see your GP who can then investigate further.

What would your GP do?

- Take a history
- Do a physical examination
- PSA blood test

So what would your GP do? Most often they’ll take a history from you, do an examination of the prostate and do a PSA blood test. What is a PSA test? So PSA stand for Prostate Specific Antigene. It’s produced by the prostate gland and it’s a marker for the presence of Prostate Cancer. However it can also be raised by other conditions so it’s not a very specific marker but it’s the first test that we can do to see whether we should proceed to further investigations.

What is a PSA test? A blood test that measures the amount of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in your blood.

So what happens if you get sent to the hospital for an examination? The specialist will see you, again take a history and an examination and then most often what they will do is arrange a prostate biopsy. Increasingly they might recommend a scan to be done first, an MRI scan and then discuss with you what the best way to do a biopsy is.

What is a Biopsy? The removal of a small sample of tissue for examination to determine the presence or extent of a disease.

And if it is cancer tell us what happens then, tell us about some of the tests. Well, a discussion then starts. The first step is to make sure we know exactly what kind of Cancer it is and that might involve other types of scans, for example a CT scan or a bone scan. The kind of Cancer is determined by the size of it or the stage of a cancer. And once the specialist puts all that information together with what the biopsy has shown then they start to discuss with you what the treatments are."