Prostate Cancer: Cause, Prevention, Detection, Solution

Prostate Cancer: Cause, Prevention, Detection, Solution

Recently, my father had a problem with his urinary system which made him could not pee as well. We didn't know what the problem is so he was brought to the Emergency Department at Bekasi and the physician gave a cateter to him which made him pee well. On the next day, the physician said that my father got benign hyperplasia and he told us to go to proper hospital for further assessment. When we arrived there, my father were asked to got an operation to lifting up his prostate because his signs indicated the prostate cancer. It’s so frustating when you have to make a difficult choice in your father suffered. But I didn’t agree with that, so we searched for other clinicians around Jakarta for hearing they diagnosis. Many of them said that it was a signs from prostate cancer and same as with the fist clinician, they said to lifting up the prostate. But at the last journey, we met the last clinician who said to nurse to release my father catheter and with the miracle of God my father can pee as well as before. He did ultra-sonography in his abdominal and did rectal plug method, from his test, he diagnosed that it’s not supposed to be prostate.         

                                                                

According to my story, I want to say that please don’t be panic when you got benign hyperplasia (specifically in Indonesia, I don’t know about others country diagnosed). Because, benign hyperplasia has not always meant you got prostate cancer. In this article I will tell you almost all about prostate cancer, the difference with benign hyperplasia which usually recognized as the begin of prostate cancer, the prevention, and solution.

A. Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a cancer in men’s reproduction organ. Generally, the prostate cell got mutation, divided uncontrollably, and made an inflammatory. The inflammation will stop up the uric channel. It’s why my father could not pee as well as usual. Beside of that, this clogging will make patient felt pain, and got erection dysfunction. The cancer cell could spread with metastasis to other cells. Prostate cancer has paid public attention because of its high mortality rate in Asia, which is 7.2 per 100.000 men per year. The prostate cancer is also a cause of 28000 deaths in America per year.

B. The cause of prostate cancer

There are so many causes of prostate cancer:

1.       Age (Generally, the probability of prostate cancer was increasing when you are 40 years or more).

2. Race (Generally, the probability of prostate cancer was increasing more in Africans and America people than Asia people)
3. Unhealthy lifestyle (High consumption of unsaturated lipid, meats, and low consumption of vegetable and fruit)
4. Medical history (If you have an family who ail prostate carconima, maybe you should suspect it in yours because there is a possibility of the DNA mutation inherited to you)
5. Genetic mutation ( It has connection with MBRCA-1 and MBRCA-2 gene mutation)

C. The prevention of prostate cancer

Many patients that I met in hospitals with my father said that kumis kucing (Orthosiphon aristatus) extract will reduce prostate cancer risk and inhibit cancer prostate growth.  It is because kumis kucing consist  high concentration of saponin. Saponin is a compound which act as anti-carcinogen (Sukmasari & Fatimah 2006). Kumis kucing extract also can increase the lymphocyte cell proliferation which used as body defense. Beside of that, please start a healthy lifestyle like sport, consume vegetables and fruits which has much of anti-oxidants compounds. The anti-oxidant will keep your body from free radical molecule.

D. Detection of prostate cancer

There are many ways to detect prostate cancer like, anamnesis, “rectal plug method”, Prostate Specific Antigent (PSA) detection, and Trans-rectal Ultra-sonography

1. Anamnesis 

Anamnesis is a method to record medical history from patient and some of his family. In this method the clinicians will find a medical correlation between him and his pateints. The aim of this method is to have information as much as possible about patient medical condition. But it can not be the only reference to assessment.

2. Rectal plug

Generally, clinicians will do rectal plug to suspected patients of prostate cancer. If there is a hard nodule in the rectum, it means there is a high possibility of prostate cancer. But the accuracy of this method is low; 5-30%

3. PSA detection

PSA test is an immunology testing use a human serum. Normally, healthy patient will get PSA concentration less than 4 ng/ml. If the patient has prostate cancer, the PSA will release higher than 4 ng/ml. This test has good sensitivity and specificity.

4. Trans-rectal Ultra-sonography

This method use an ultra sonography system to see prostate area in patient’s abdominal. But it is also recommended when you has got PSA test results. This method is invasive. Nevertheless, prostate inflammation is not always indicate that you have cancer prostate. Some patients (include my father) maybe had benign hyperplasia. Benign hyperplasia is the condition which is an enlarged prostate gland.   As the prostate gets bigger, it may partly block the urethra. This often causes problems with urinating. But benign hyperplasia can be cured with dutasteride and finasteride.

E. Solution

Generally, patient who has diagnosed has prostate cancer, highly recommended to use radiotherapy or operation to lifting up the prostate gland. For further information please also read (Indonesia language) http://kanker.kemkes.go.id/guidelines/PPKProstat.pdf

Thanks for reading J Stay tuned for the next article.

Reference

Sukmasari & Fatimah. 2006. Analisis kadar saponin dalam daun kumis kucing dengan menggunakan metode TLC-Scanner.Temu Teknis Nasional Tenaga Fungsional Pertanian: 313-315.