Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in males. It is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy, and 1 in 8 men are expected to be diagnosed with this disease at some point in their lifetime. That doesn’t include males with undiagnosed prostate cancer when it develops later in life. The incidence of this disease increases the older you are. Males who reach 80 years will have an 80% risk of prostate cancer, which is a lot.
Luckily, prostate cancer is not like other types of cancer. Older men are more likely to die from other causes than prostate cancer, and that’s why screening for the disease stops once you turn 70 years. This type of cancer usually grows very slowly, and it doesn’t have enough time to become lethal after this age.
Still, the disease has many signs and symptoms, and most of them involve the urinary tract. What we know as lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in males are likely caused by prostate problems.
In this article, we will cover the most important lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in males and how they can make us suspect prostate cancer. Then, the article will also cover other symptoms of advanced prostate cancer and metastatic disease.
Storage LUTS
Storage symptoms in the lower urinary tract are caused by inflammation. You could say they are symptoms of bladder or urethral irritation. They include:
1. Urgency to urinate
Urinary urgency is the sudden need to urinate immediately. Patients may feel normal at one time and feel the urge to urinate the next minute. This symptom can be accompanied by urinary incontinence, as we will cover below, but it is not always so severe. Urinary urgency is caused by inflammation and irritation of the urinary bladder. The irritated bladder sends signals to the brain in response to minor distention when the bladder is not yet completely full. But patients feel the urge to urinate, even if there’s still space in the urinary bladder.