A lot of deaths that occur in the male group have been widely caused by prostate cancer, with thousands of death recorded each year. Thus, there have been factors or otherwise considered as markers to determine the types of men that need a more aggressive treatment when diagnosed with the disease.
Study Conducted To Determine Which Men Are Most Likely To Have Been Cured Or Not With Prostate Cancer
According to reports, researchers believe that they have found a way to determine who among the men diagnosed with prostate cancer are most likely to survive the treatment or not. A certain blood test known as the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is to be conducted on the man who has undergone treatment for prostate cancer. If the result of the blood test shows that it does not fall to low levels, it means the cancer is not entirely gone. There is still a high possibility that it will come back and spread even more to the entire immune system. This study has been conducted by a medical team at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
PSA Count Is Important In Identifying If Treatment Has Successfully Worked On Cancer Patient
Medically speaking, the PSA test works in a way that it searchers for a specific antigen that is made entirely by prostate cells. If there is a higher PSA level or count, it means that the prostate cells are growing usually because of cancer. However, there are also instances wherein the high PSA count is caused by an inflamed prostate that naturally comes with aging, so it is not as harmful. Thus, the PSA should fall to 0.5 nanograms per millilitre or lower to indicate that the treatment for the cancer has been successful.
In line with this, Dr. Trevor Royce who conducted the study claims that these men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer should enter themselves in clinical trials. This is to help more patients and victims to such disease and making the incurable kinds to a curable state. Since prostate cancer kills more men than anticipated, it is always important to known which men are more at risk of dying of the disease than those who are likely to survive.
