Can I Find Prostate Cancer Before the Symptoms?
Answer
Yes. Prostate cancer screening is looking for the disease before a person has any symptoms. Two screening tests commonly used to detect prostate cancer in the absence of symptoms are the digital rectal exam (DRE), in which a doctor feels the prostate through the rectum to find hard or lumpy areas, and a blood test that detects a substance made by the prostate called prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Together, these tests can detect many silent prostate cancers that have not caused symptoms. Due to the widespread use of PSA testing in the United States, approximately 90 percent of all prostate cancers are currently diagnosed at an early stage, and consequently men are surviving longer after their diagnosis of prostate cancer.