Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in Singapore. According to the Singapore Cancer Registry, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed to have prostate cancer in Singapore is 4.8%.
In Singapore, prostate cancer is usually diagnosed in men who are 50 years and older. Less commonly, younger patients may be affected if they have a strong family history of cancer.
Early stage prostate cancer may not cause any symptoms and the first sign that may indicate cancer could be an elevated level of PSA blood test (tumour marker for prostate cancer).
Advanced prostate cancer may cause urinary symptoms such as difficulty in urinating, frequent urge to urinate and excessive waking up at night to pass urine. However, these symptoms can also be caused by non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate.
If you are concerned about your risk of having prostate cancer, we recommend that you consult your doctor. Your doctor may decide to perform a physical examination and arrange a PSA blood test for you. Depending on the results, further tests such as MRI prostate, and prostate biopsy may be needed.
Fortunately, prostate cancer is a treatable disease; according to the Singapore Cancer Registry Annual Report, it has one of the highest survival rates of all cancers post-diagnosis (97.9% at one year and 89.2% at five years).
You can read more about prostate cancer by clicking on the link below:
https://www.urospecialist.com.sg/condition/prostate-cancer/
Image attribution: Pedro Ribeiro Simões from Lisboa, Portugal, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
REFERENCE
- Singapore Cancer Registry Annual Report 2022. https://www.healthxchange.sg/sites/hexassets/Assets/cancer/scr-ar-2022_web-report.pdf
