What Is Prostate Cancer?

Video Transcript

Hello, my name is Dr. Susan Jewell. Now in this clip I'm going to talk to you about the prostate gland and what happens if you get prostate cancer or other particular prostate conditions and how would this affect the gland itself and why you get the particular signs and symptoms and why we can how a medical doctor can detect some of the signs of prostate cancer. Now let's look at this pictorial diagram I've drawn for you. Now let's orientate ourselves. Now here is the diagram of the male reproductive system. This is the penis gland here and up here is the bladder. This blue area represents the prostrate gland itself. This is the bladder and the urethra tube going through. And here's the seminal vesicle which is a gland that produces some particular hormones and it runs through the prostate. But this is the front part of the body of the abdominal area which is the belly. And then here is the posterior part which is the colon here and the rectum. Now what happens is when you get problems of the prostate gland or you get prostate cancer the early signs of prostate cancer start within the tissue itself and then the tumor starts to grow and grow and grow. So as it grows, its going to enlarge the prostate gland so as the prostate gland starts to enlarge, you're still not going to feel any symptoms or you might get symptoms of like urinary problems because its going to if it grows that direction the tumor, its going to compress the urine. You're going to get some early symptoms of urinary problems but however, as the tumor grows, it will start growing and growing and when it gets to a size, its going to start pushing on this anterior wall of the colon and eventually if you keep letting it grow larger, the colon itself is going to get narrow its going to constrict the colon itself. Now that's when you actually get symptoms. You're going to get symptoms and the Doctor will be able to recognize these symptoms and he will then do a rectal examination where he inserts the finger into the rectum and feel the prostate gland and there are specific signs that you can feel on the anterior wall of the colon if you're a trained doctor. Just say ok, this is probably prostate cancer or problem with the prostate. But you're going to get the symptoms then, but you won't get the symptoms at the early stages because the cancer itself is not actually large enough to impinge on other structures to cause the signs and symptoms. That's why its so important that you actually recognize signs and symptoms to detect prostate cancer early stage because at the early stages its very asymptomatic.

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