… may affect your quality of life! Do you know where it is? The size of a healthy prostate? If someone asked you, “What is the main function of the prostate gland?” could you answer correctly?

According to a 2019 survey of 3,010 European men over age 50, only 1 out of 4 were able to correctly identify the prostate’s main function (which, by the way, is the manufacture of seminal fluid to carry sperm out of the body during orgasm).

The American Cancer Society offers a prostate cancer quiz with 6 basic questions:

1. Men of any age can get prostate cancer – true or false?
2. Prostate cancer often causes men to have trouble passing urine – true or false?
3. Prostate cancer is very common in the U.S. – true or false?
4. Prostate cancer always needs to be treated right away – true or false?
5. All men should be tested for prostate cancer – true or false?
6. There’s nothing that can be done to lower your chances of getting prostate cancer – true or false?

Click here to take the quiz and get your score. It only takes a minute or two. How well did you do?

Below the age of 50, there’s not much about the prostate that requires your attention. A small minority of men (about 5%) between the ages of 20-50 will get a non life-threatening condition called chronic prostatitis (inflammation). However, you’ll probably reach midlife without thinking about this small gland that lies directly below and against the bladder. Know your anatomy: when you pee, urine flows into the urethra (passage) that runs through the center of the prostate on its way to the penis.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)

After age 50, however, the prostate may start getting your attention due to a condition called benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH. Its clinical name translates what’s happening:

• Benign – Not cancer
• Prostatic – In the prostate
• Hyperplasia – As “hyper” suggests too many or too much, and “plasia” comes from the ancient Greek word meaning to form or mold, it literally means too many noncancerous cells are forming. Or, think of it as noncancerous prostate cells on crack.

In short, the gland starts enlarging.

The causes are not fully understood, but it’s thought that changes in hormones (especially testosterone) lead to different activity in prostate tissue. As it enlarges, it can compress the urethra, causing urinary symptoms such as more frequent sense of urgency, waking up to pee more often at night, difficulty starting to pee, or incomplete emptying of the bladder. If you don’t know about your prostate, you might think it’s a urinary problem. However, talking about peeing problems can be embarrassing. Also, many guys put off seeing a doctor. If you don’t understand your prostate, you may simply put up with the situation and hope it gets better on its own. It won’t. As it gets worse, quality of life begins to drop due to interrupted sleep, and needing to go the bathroom more often during the day but having trouble starting to pee. I had one patient who waited way too long to see a doctor, and he literally had to put his hand on his abdomen and press in and down to force himself to urinate. He didn’t know that his prostate needed intervention.

The National Institutes of Health advises, “Researchers have not found a way to prevent benign prostatic hyperplasia. Men with risk factors for benign prostatic hyperplasia should talk with a health care provider about any lower urinary tract symptoms and the need for regular prostate exams.” Regular prostate exams?! Oh no. That means a digital rectal exam (DRE) involving a doctor inserting a lubricated gloved finger into the rectum in order to manually check for enlargement through the rectal wall. Some men will find any excuse to avoid an annual DRE, but if they knew about the prostate and what it does, they would understand the importance of their doctor monitoring it.

BPH can’t be prevented, but it can be safely and effectively treated. Rather than wait until urinary problems become insufferable, there’s a way to preserve quality of life. In its early stages, oral medication for BPH can relieve urinary symptoms. If medication becomes ineffective, or the patient does not want to take a drug, there are treatments done through the penis (under anesthesia) to open the urethra; recovery may vary depending on the approach, but most require temporary use of a catheter as the lining of the urethra heals.

The Sperling Prostate Center offers two minimally invasive image-guided treatments to reduce BPH and alleviate symptoms:

1. MRI-guided Focal Laser Ablation reduces pressure on the urethra by strategically applying a transrectal laser fiber to ablate a section(s) of prostate tissue pressing into the urethra. Since it’s done using a local anesthetic, no general anesthesia is needed and recovery is short.
2. TULSA (Transurethral Ultrasound Ablation of the Prostate) widens the urethral passage by applying focused ultrasound (destructive heat) from within the urethral passage to destroy a pre-planned amount of tissue that is bocking urine flow. It is an outpatient procedure.

The European study found “… a variety of misconceptions surrounding prostate health and, in particular, enlarged prostates (also known as benign prostate enlargement (BPE) or hyperplasia (BPH)) with just 38 percent of respondents able to correctly identify the disorder.” Put another way, more than 60% of respondents did not know the connection between their peeing problems and the gland that makes seminal fluid. No pun intended, but here’s the bottom line: Know thy prostate!

NOTE: This content is solely for purposes of information and does not substitute for diagnostic or medical advice. Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing pelvic pain, or have any other health concerns or questions of a personal medical nature.