September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in Egypt

This September, the Egyptian Association for Support to Cancer Survivors launched a nationwide campaign called “CanSurvive Egypt” to raise awareness of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer, according to the Egyptian National Cancer Institute (NCI), yearly affects 2.5% of the male population, all of whom are above the age of 50. That might not seem like a lot, but the symptoms get confused with a whole lot of other diseases affecting the male genitourinary system.

What is this “prostate” thingy, you ask? It’s a small gland below the bladder surrounding the urethra and it’s responsible for production of about 70% of the seminal fluid crucial for the nutrition and vitality of sperm.

Symptoms of prostate cancer include a wide range of abnormalities in the peeing process, from difficulty starting and trouble having a single stream to blood in the urine. Not only that, prostate cancer also affects the other function of your valuable asset: ejaculation.

Most of the time, these vague symptoms aren’t consistent or pass unnoticed. They are also shared with most of the diseases affecting the genitourinary system, like infections, urinary stones and the mild enlargement of the prostate that affects about half of the male population above the age of 60.

So when prostate cancer isn’t diagnosed and treated early, it spreads to other organs, especially the bones, causing aches, fractures and a whole other set of dilemmas. And it’s responsible for four in every 100,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

The thing is, prostate cancer is treatable if diagnosed early!

Diagnosis ranges from a simple blood and urine test to ultrasound imaging and biopsy. Treatment includes surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or, in some cases, hormonal therapy.

Up to now, we still don’t know what causes prostate cancer and therefore we don’t know how to prevent it. But general rules for prevention apply to all types of cancer: a healthy balanced diet with more than five servings of fruit and vegetables per day, an active lifestyle with at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise threes times a week, no smoking or alcohol consumption, and getting your daily requirements of vitamins and essential and trace minerals in your diet or from supplements.

To learn more about prostate cancer, its symptoms, treatments (if you have issues with your prostate, you could consider tablets like prostagenix until you meet with your doctor) and methods of detection and prevention, check out www.icansurvive.com. And spread the word! Share this with your family, friends and coworkers. You might just help save a life.