Prostate Cancer

Early-stage prostate cancer rarely causes symptoms. As the cancer progresses, you might need to pee more often, or find it harder to completely empty your bladder. It might be painful to pee or to ejaculate, and you might have blood in your semen or pee. You might have pain in your lower back, hip and chest and numbness in your feet and legs.

If you have any of these symptoms, it’s important to see a healthcare provider right away. We’re here to help you figure out what’s going on.

Your provider will start off by asking about your symptoms and your medical history. If they suspect you have cancer, they might do a few different tests, like a prostate exam, to confirm your diagnosis and find out how big and how quickly your cancer is growing (what stage it is). Your provider might also do one or more of these tests:

Digital rectal exam

Your provider will check out your prostate bumps or hard areas on your prostate gland. They’ll do this by inserting a gloved, lubricated finger (digit) into your rectum to reach your prostate.

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test:

 This test shows if your prostate is making higher-than-normal levels of PSA. Elevated PSA levels could mean you have cancer.

Biopsy

Your provider will use a needle to take a small amount of tissue from your prostate and send it to our lab where a pathologist will look at it under a microscope. A biopsy will tell for sure if you have prostate cancer.

Meet Your Prostate Cancer Team

Choosing Cleveland Clinic for prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment means you’ll benefit from our team-based approach. Healthcare providers from different specialties will work closely together to plan your personalized treatment based on your values, priorities, tolerance for side effects and desired quality of life. Your care team could include:

• Urologists.
• Oncologists.
• Radiologists (imaging specialists).
• Pathologists (body tissue specialists).
• Anesthesiologists.
• Social workers.
• Nurse practitioners.
• Physician assistants.

Second opinion for prostate cancer at Cleveland Clinic

If you find out you have prostate cancer, you want to have the very best medical team on your side. That’s why, at Cleveland Clinic, we encourage second opinions. Our specialists are happy to talk over your diagnosis and give their expert opinions on the best treatment plan for you. We’ll take the time to answer your questions and offer support.

Second opinions can give you the confidence you need to move forward with treatment and the peace of mind knowing you’re in the most capable, compassionate hands. And because you shouldn’t have to wait to get help, we do our best to schedule an appointment with you as soon as possible.

If we confirm you have prostate cancer, we’ll work with you to decide what type of treatment (if any) will be the most effective for you. Because prostate cancer grows slowly, you might never need treatment. But if you do, there’s good news — most prostate cancers are highly curable. Here are a few of the treatment options your provider might recommend:

Active surveillance

If we choose to follow this approach, you’ll see us for screenings, scans and biopsies every one to three years. This lets us keep a close eye on your prostate and see if the cancer grows.

Watchful waiting

Similar to active surveillance, watchful waiting means fewer appointments and focuses more on managing your symptoms.

Brachytherapy

Designed to preserve surrounding healthy tissue, brachytherapy (internal radiation therapy) involves placing permanent radioactive seeds inside your prostate. This helps us better target cancer cells and helps protect surrounding healthy tissue.

External beam radiation therapy

In radiation therapy, we send strong X-ray beams directly to the tumor to destroy cancer cells.

Systemic therapies

If the cancer has spread outside of your prostate gland, your provider may recommend treatments that kill cancer cells throughout your body, like:

• Chemotherapy.
• Androgen deprivation hormone therapy.
• Immunotherapy.

Focal therapy

 A newer form of treatment, focal therapy involves only treating the area of your prostate affected by cancer. It can be an effective option if your cancer is in just in one area of your prostate and hasn’t spread to other parts of your body.

Prostatectomy

We’ll remove your entire prostate gland in a prostatectomy. Depending on your cancer and health, we might do:

• Robotic radical prostatectomy.
• Single-port radical prostatectomy.

Fertility considerations

If your future plans include having biological children, you’ll be referred to a fertility specialist before starting certain treatments for prostate cancer.

Taking the Next Step

While prostate cancer is common, it’s also probably something you’re hoping to avoid. But when you’re having symptoms that just don’t seem right, we’re here to help. When you reach out to Cleveland Clinic, you’re taking the first step toward peace of mind and the journey back to a healthy life — with expert cancer care and compassionate support from the day you’re diagnosed to treatment and beyond.