The news arriving for the near future is not encouraging: by 2040 men with prostate cancer they should be close to three million compared to half of the cases that occurred worldwide in 2020. If these numbers are worrying, the situation is very different for treatments with more and more interventions that will be successful thanks to advances in medicine and prevention.
The warning of the experts
These perspectives were made known by an analysis published in the journal The Lancet by the Commission on Prostate Cancer, the most common cancer in men in 112 countries and represents the 15% of tumors. The increase in global cases cannot be prevented “only with lifestyle changes or public health interventions, governments must prepare strategies to cope”, the experts explain in the document available online. The differences are notable if we are talking about advanced nations compared to low-income countries but also in case of diagnosis with advanced stage disease “the optimal use of available technologies, adapted to available resource levels, could produce better results”.
The numbers in Italy
According to the latest analyses, in Italy one man in eight will have to deal with prostate cancer: they were only registered in 2023 41,100 new cases, ranked first as cancer in men. More than lack of prevention, from north to south the elderly population is increasing and consequently the risk of contracting this disease but the dangers of falling ill at a younger age is concrete and also depends on lifestyles: those who have aincorrect power supply and I’m overweight.
The importance of the Psa test
To discover the general condition of the prostate, one of the best tools for a diagnosis can be the examination of the Psa to be carried out with a normal blood collection. In this way it is possible to find out, through the values, whether the disease is found at the beginning and in the phases in which action can be taken in a more effective and timely manner. However, high values are not always synonymous with a tumor because it can also be one prostatitis (inflammation) but also a physiological increase in the volume of the organ (hypertrophy) more common with advancing age.
This test, however, is sometimes used by patients as the only diagnostic tool but it is wrong: it is of fundamental importance visit to the urologist Why “about a quarter of tumors manifest themselves with a Psa within normal limits but with a prostate nodule, causing a real ‘loss’ for the patient in the diagnostic process”, Prof. explained to Repubblica. Tommaso Cai, director of the Urology Unit of the Trento Hospital and secretary of the Italian Society of Andrology (Sia). Furthermore, the PSA “it does not constitute a specific marker of prostate cancer, but only indicates that the prostate is in a sub-optimal state of health and does not allow us to identify the aggressiveness of the cancer“, underlines the expert.
How to do prevention
From nutrition to lifestyle, there are many factors that can prevent the appearance of prostate cancer: come on 40-45 years a visit to the urologist should be customary also and above all in people who have relatives who have faced the disease. Finally, excellent news also from current therapies and those expected in the near future can treat this cancer”successfully and ensure a better quality of life with rapid functional recovery“.
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