Fighting prostate cancer is teamwork



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Prostate cancer is treatable, when caught early

MADISON, Wisconsin – Know your numbers. This is the message that oncologists and patients want men to hear about screening for prostate cancer.

Besides skin cancer, prostate cancer is the number one cancer in men. One in eight men will be diagnosed with it in their lifetime.

Detected early with a simple blood test, prostate cancer is very treatable, in fact in some cases doctors will simply keep tabs on PSA numbers without any treatment.

Michael Bentley, a 75-year-old Madison resident, caught cancer early because his doctor performed annual tests. The biggest problem with prostate cancer is that there are rarely symptoms at first.

UW urologist Dr David Jarrard said: “A lot of times men come for other reasons, for example, symptoms of urinary obstruction, decreased flow, things like that. But these are more generally linked to an enlarged prostate rather than prostate cancer. For many of these cancers, we rely on screening to help us identify men who have this cancer. It changes into PSA or prostate specific antigen.

For Bentley, a cancer patient, her support system was as important as her treatment. “I had a mix of good support system, family, friends, a therapist is very important mental health in this whole process, not just in the beginning and during. And then you talk to a therapist and a lot of guys don’t like talking to their therapist, not who to talk to, you know. And I needed this. I needed all the support I could get, ”said Bentley.

Ultimately, according to Dr. Jarrard, get tested from age 50, earlier if there is a family history.



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