Early Signs and Symptoms of Prostate Cancer in Men
… Continued …
Since the disease typically doesn’t cause any sign and symptom at early stage, doctors often recommend taking a routine PSA test to detect the cancer as earlier as possible. The big question is when you start taking it?
The answer is dependent on your situation, particularly the risk factors that you have [source].
- If you don’t have any risk factors of prostate cancer and any symptom of the disease, you should start discussing your screening test with your doctor at the age of 50.
- If you have some or many risk factors of the disease (particularly if you are an African or African-American man and you also have a family member (son, father, or brother) diagnosed with the disease before the age of 65), you should start discussing the test with your doctor earlier (about at the age of 45).
- And if you have more than one of family member (first degree relative, such as father, son, and brother) who diagnosed with the disease before the age of 65, you should start that discussion at the age of 40!
In addition, some experts don’t agree that PSA test can be effective enough to detect the prostate cancer early.
Though the test can measure the levels of prostate-specific antigen that may point to an existence of cancer (early detection), it’s not going without risks. It is potential to cause some side effects (such as increased anxiety and over-treatment problem).
So in general, this kind of test is still debatable. For more advice, consult more with your doctor!
