By Dr. James Young
Many patients ask me, “Exactly what does the prostate do? What is it good for?” Many men seem to think of their prostates as a source of aggravation and problems, and not much else.
The prostate is a walnut-sized gland situated just below the bladder in males, with the urethra (water channel) running through it. The prostate secretes fluids that compose about 40 percent of the volume of semen and these fluids help mobilize and keep sperm healthy for potential fertilization.
As males mature and age, the prostate usually grows as a response to testosterone, the male hormone. This enlargement process can cause difficulty with urination, referred to as bladder outlet obstruction. Imagine the prostate as a donut and the water channel as the hole in the donut. As the donut enlarges, the hole gets smaller. This enlargement begins to compress the water channel thus slowing the stream, usually causing such symptoms as getting up at night to urinate, hesitancy, urgency and dribbling.
The prostate can also become infected, a condition known as prostatitis. Prostatitis is chronic or acute in nature and very difficult to completely alleviate. Most men will continue to have bacteria in their prostate long after symptoms have resolved, even after months of antibiotic treatment. Prostate infections can, and do recur; however, they are not sexually transmitted. They usually come from other urinary or blood-borne infections that end up in the prostate.
The prostate can also become cancerous. Prostate cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer deaths in American men. Since the advent of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer, today diagnoses are generally made much sooner than in days past. This has led to an overall drop in prostate cancer deaths.
Relative to other human cancers, such as breast or colon cancer, prostate cancer is a very slow-growing cancer even in its more aggressive forms. Therefore, it may take decades to discover if a particular diagnostic tool such as PSA is effective (and current studies confirm it is very effective), or if a certain treatment program for prostate cancer is successful.
The specialty of urology focuses on diagnosis and treatment of prostate problems. Should you have questions about your prostate, don’t hesitate to make an appointment with your local urologist.