Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Symptoms
By Mayo Clinic staffProstate cancer usually doesn't produce any noticeable symptoms in its early stages, so many cases of prostate cancer aren't detected until the cancer has spread beyond the prostate. For most men, prostate cancer is first detected during a routine screening such as a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test or a digital rectal exam (DRE).
When signs and symptoms do occur, they depend on how advanced the cancer is and how far the cancer has spread.
Early signs and symptoms of prostate cancer can include urinary problems, caused when the prostate tumor presses on the bladder or on the tube that carries urine from the bladder (urethra). However, urinary symptoms are much more commonly caused by benign prostate problems, such as an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia) or prostate infections. Less than 5 percent of cases of prostate cancer have urinary problems as the initial symptom. When urinary signs and symptoms do occur, they can include:
- Trouble urinating
- Starting and stopping while urinating
- Decreased force in the stream of urine
Cancer in your prostate or the area around the prostate can cause:
- Blood in your urine
- Blood in your semen
Prostate cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes in your pelvis may cause:
- Swelling in your legs
- Discomfort in the pelvic area
Advanced prostate cancer that has spread to your bones can cause:
- Bone pain that doesn't go away
- Bone fractures
- Compression of the spine
- Wilson WG et al. Abeloff: Clinical Oncology, 3rd ed. Prostate Cancer. Ch 87
- Ferri FF. Ferri's Clinical Advisor 2008, 10th ed. Prostate Cancer.
- Small EJ. Prostate cancer (2007) Goldman: Cecil Medicine, 23rd ed. Chapter 211.
- National Cancer Institute. PC-SPES, Patient version (9/21/07). Accessed online, 1/20/08: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/pc-spes
- Gaziano JM, et al. Vitamins E and C in the prevention of prostate and total cancer in men: The physicians' health study II randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/2008.862v1. Accessed Dec. 31, 2008.
- Lippman SM, et al. Effect of selenium and vitamin E on risk of prostate cancer and other cancer: The selenium and vitamin E cancer prevention trial (SELECT). Journal of the American Medical Association. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/2008.864v1. Accessed Dec. 31, 2008.
- Castle EP (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. Jan. 2, 2009.
