Enlarging Tumors & Prostate Cancer

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Dr. Susan Jewell and in this clip I am going to talk to you about how if you have the tumor in your prostate and it enlarges and affects the urinary tract. Here is the diagram of the prostate and its location in the male reproductive system. Now let's orientate ourselves. This is the prostate gland, this blue area, shaded in and this is the bladder, this is the urethral tract, the penis gland, here is the front part of the male body which is the abdominal and pelvic area and here is the posterior end. This is the colon and rectal area. Here is the bladder up here as I said. What happens is if you get a tumor in the prostate gland and depending on where the tumor starts to grow say for example the tumor is here and over time in the early stage you don't feel anything but over time as the tumor gets larger and larger then it is going to start compressing and affecting the urethra and it will start compressing. Also if the tumor spreads to the other side then the urethral tract is going to start getting thinner and more constricted. So you are going to get over time problems. Some of the signs and symptoms of this is difficulty with urination, you are going to get a sense of urgency where even though you have just emptied your bladder you still have this urgency feeling that you need to keep rushing to the bathroom. The other problem is difficulty starting urination and these are some of the complaints. Also some individuals complain of pain during urination because of the compression of the tract itself caused by the tumor. So these are some of the signs that you could actually learn to recognize if you feel you have problems with your prostate glands whether it is in other prostatitis or in particular prostate cancer. The early stages of prostate cancer is asymptomatic or painless because it has not actually impinged or begun to affect these other structures but to recognize these signs you should actually learn about it so that you can go and check it out with your medical doctor."