Jaber Al-Ahmad Hospital, senior urology specialist Dr. Mohammad Al-Ghanim said November is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and is a good opportunity to raise awareness of the danger of prostate cancer, Al Qabas daily reported.
Al-Ghanim added in a press statement that with age, the risk of Prostate Cancer increases in most men, and that is why 50-year-old men must go for regular examinations. According to the report of the cancer registry in Kuwait, prostate cancer ranked first as the most common cancer among Kuwaiti men in 2015, at a rate of 15 persons per 100,000 inhabitants. The prostate tumor is often slow-growing, but for a small percentage of patients, the tumor is fierce and fast-spreading, so there must be awareness to save the lives of thousands of people.
Al-Ghanim emphasized that the causes of this cancer are not clear, and it might be heredity, as the percentage doubles in first-degree relatives, in addition other causes are related to age, geographical and spatial distribution, as cases are more likely in America, Africa and Europe than Asia and the Middle East.
Pointing out that treatment is done in several ways, he explained it includes the use of a robot to assist in surgery, and there are other treatments such as radiation therapy, and there is also treatment that deals with hormones, which is to make the body stop producing male testosterone, of which the cancer feeds on. Expanding on the treatment, he said that this treatment option includes two methods, the first is drugs that prevent the body from secreting testosterone, or the alternative is drugs that block testosterone from reaching the cells.
He also mentioned chemotherapy, and biological treatment for cases where the tumor has spread outside the prostate. He stressed that this disease is among the worst diseases in the world due to the prevalence of cases.