After Biden's diagnosis: Prostate cancer facts every man should know
It's not particularly pleasant, but a digital rectal exam can save a man's life.
Its purpose is to screen for cancer of the prostate gland, the second most frequent malignancy (after lung cancer) in men worldwide in 2020, and the leading one in more than half of the world's countries, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
"Cancer touches us all," former US president Joe Biden wrote in a post on the online platform X on Monday, after it became known he has prostate cancer. Biden's office says it is an aggressive and advanced form of the disease that has spread to the bones, but that the condition can be managed.
From warning signs to treatment options, here is some essential information for anyone with an ageing prostate.
Who's especially at risk?
"Prostate cancer is a disease of older men," says Dr Anno Graser, a Munich-based radiologist and prostate specialist. A 35-year-old man has a 0.1% risk of developing prostate cancer within the next 10 years, he notes, while a 75-year-old's risk is 5%. Joe Biden is 82.
There were more than 1.41 million cases of prostate cancer worldwide in 2020, or 7.3% of total cancer cases, estimates the IARC, part of the World Health Organization (WHO).
What are the warning signs?
Usually there aren't any. "The body doesn't recognize that abnormal cells are multiplying uncontrollably, so there are typically no symptoms in the early stages," explains Dr Olaf Reichelt, chief physician in the Department of Urology and Paediatric Urology at the Helios Clinic in Aue, Germany. This is why screening is so important, he says.
At an advanced stage, bone pain in the lower back, hips and ribs, or difficulty urinating, can occur. By this time, however, the cancer is likely to have metastasized, or spread, to nearby areas such as the spine or lymph nodes in the groin.
How can prostate cancer be detected early?
As mentioned above, one screening method is prostate palpation. Many early cancers are still too small to be felt though. Another method is a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. PSA is protein produced by cells of the prostate gland, and men with prostate cancer often have an elevated level of PSA in their blood. However, some non-cancerous conditions can also cause a man's PSA level to rise.
Men can lower the risk of having prostate cancer overlooked by getting both a digital rectal exam and a PSA test. But cancer specialists say this also increases the chances of false-positive results for cancer.
A further screening method is multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI), regarded as the most sensitive and specific imaging technique for the detection and evaluation of prostate cancer.
Is a rectal exam painful?
While the procedure isn't particularly pleasant and may make you feel helpless, having your prostate palpated by a doctor is normally painless.
During the exam, a doctor inserts a gloved, lubricated finger into the rectum and palpates, or feels, the prostate for any hard, lumpy or abnormal areas. It takes just a few minutes, after which you can feel good about having had a perhaps life-saving check-up.
How dangerous is prostate cancer compared with other cancers?
Prostate cancer is among the somewhat less aggressive cancers and curable if it hasn't reached an advanced stage. It's accountable for 3.8% of all mortality caused by cancer in men - more than 375,000 deaths annually - and estimated to be the fifth leading cause of cancer death in men globally, according to the IARC.
Compared with cancer types that affect fewer men but kill a higher percentage of them, prostate cancer is curable about 90% of the time, Graser says. The earlier it's detected, the better the patient's prognosis.
What are the treatment options?
The type of treatment depends on several factors, including the patient's age, PSA level, biopsy result and any accompanying illnesses, points out Reichelt. If the patient is between 50 and 75 years of age and his cancer isn't at an advanced stage, the treatment is usually surgical removal of the prostate or radiation.
While advanced prostate cancer is rarely curable, Reichelt says, in many cases it can be kept under control for several years with hormone, chemo- and immunotherapy.
"Many men don't die of, but rather with, cancer carcinoma," he remarks. Doctors may recommend, for example, that an 80-year-old patient with a tumour that's not very aggressive not be treated at all.
Will prostate surgery impact my pelvic floor?
Most people don't give their pelvic floor a thought until it acts up. For women, this often happens during pregnancy and after childbirth, when coughing, sneezing or laughing can cause urine to leak - a sign of weakened pelvic floor muscles due to overstretching.
But men, too, especially those impacted by prostate cancer, would do well to give some love to their pelvic floor, a dome-shaped sheet of muscles and connective tissue forming the base of the abdomen in both men and women.
"An integral pelvic floor organ in men is the prostate," says urologist and andrologist Dr Wolfgang Bühmann.
The prostate, a walnut-sized organ that sits below the bladder very close to the pelvic floor, plays a key role for the muscle sheet, explains Bühmann: "If it has to be removed due to cancer, the pelvic floor loses an essential buttress that's important for urinary continence."
A weak pelvic floor can cause back pain as well as lead to abnormal curvature of the spine and herniated spinal discs - not to mention erectile dysfunction. Your doctor will be able to suggest certain exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor as needed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
Obama's doctor is critical of care decision by Biden's doctor
Joe Biden's doctor should have given him a cognitive test during his final year as president because of his age, Barack Obama's former physician said in an interview, contending that the results would have helped the White House and the public understand whether Biden was up to serving another four years. A report by White House physician Kevin O'Connor in February 2024 didn't include any mention of neurocognitive testing for the then-81-year-old Biden. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who held the same job under Obama and has called for cognitive testing for presidents and presidential candidates, said Biden would have benefited from such a test given his age. 'Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest,' Kuhlman said of O'Connor, Biden's physician since 2009. The rare criticism of one White House doctor by another comes as Republicans have increased scrutiny of O'Connor and other former White House aides. House Republicans subpoenaed O'Connor on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump ordered White House attorneys to determine whether Biden's inner circle tried to conceal his alleged cognitive decline. Kuhlman also said the 2024 report merely assessed Biden's health when it should have considered his fitness to serve in one of the most taxing jobs on the planet. 'It shouldn't be just health, it should be fitness,' Kuhlman said. 'Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?' O'Connor did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Biden's recent disclosure of metastatic prostate cancer and reporting about his alleged physical and cognitive decline have fueled suspicion — among Democrats as well as Republicans — that the true state of Biden's health toward the end of his term was known only by O'Connor and a few others closest to Biden. Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson sketched a picture of a well-meaning but weakened president in a book they released last month. The book, which draws on interviews with dozens of Democratic insiders after the 2024 election, paints a portrait of a man suffering at times from forgetfulness, incoherence and fatigue. It also says that O'Connor was reluctant to give Biden a cognitive test, though he was assessed by a neurologist for conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Biden gave a sarcastic response last week. 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, and I can't walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' he told reporters at a Memorial Day event, apparently referring to Tapper and Thompson. Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden has called the book 'political fairy smut.' The book isn't the first time Biden's cognitive state has been questioned. Special counsel Robert K. Hur said in February 2024 that Biden had 'limited precision and recall' — including not remembering when his vice-presidential term ended — after Hur conducted two days of interviews with Biden about his handling of classified documents. Kuhlman formerly worked alongside O'Connor in the White House medical unit, a nonpartisan post, and appointed him in 2009 to serve as then-Vice President Biden's personal doctor. Kuhlman was Obama's physician from 2009 to 2013. O'Connor examined Biden — and signed his name to the February 2024 medical report that said the president 'continues to be fit for duty' — four months before a disastrous campaign debate between Trump and Biden prompted Democrats to call for Biden to step down as the nominee. Kuhlman, who left the medical unit in 2013, said he tries not to criticize those who have held similar positions. He called O'Connor 'a good doctor' who seemed to do his best to 'give trusted medical advice.' 'I didn't see that he's purposely hiding stuff, but I don't know that,' he said. 'Maybe the investigation will show it.' O'Connor's six-page report included Biden's lab results and an explanation of various conditions for which he was being treated. It also listed 10 medical specialists, including a neurologist, who also examined Biden. 'President Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,' O'Connor wrote. White House doctors have long been under intense public scrutiny, balancing the deeply personal doctor-patient relationship with a responsibility to tell the American public whether the president is fit to serve — and if not, why. Some have gone to great lengths to hide when the president is severely ill — as Grover Cleveland's doctors did when they turned a yacht into an operating room to secretly remove a tumor from the president's mouth in 1893. Presidential physicians also are expected to communicate to Americans personal information about the very person who could fire them. 'Whether it's family who are worried for them or people who work for them and don't want to lose their jobs, no one has a vested interest in hearing the truth about the president's health — except for the American people and the world,' said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia. It has not always been clear what role the White House doctors see for themselves. Even as they are often close confidants of the president, they must consider the good of the country in their recommendations about what tests and treatments to pursue. O'Connor repeatedly refused last year to administer a cognitive exam to Biden even as aides privately expressed concerns about his mental fitness, according to Tapper and Thompson's book. Trump's former doctors, including Ronny Jackson and Sean Conley, have at times sounded more like cheerleaders for the president than sober judges of his health. His current doctor, Sean Barbabella, mentioned Trump's 'frequent victories in golf events' in the first medical report of his second term. Jackson suggested to the media in 2018 that Trump had 'incredibly good genes' and joked that he might live to 200 years old if his eating habits were more healthful. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, was demoted by the U.S. Navy after an inspector general report shed light on multiple misdeeds involving alcohol and harassment while he served in the White House medical unit. Conley, who succeeded Jackson, repeatedly downplayed the severity of Trump's symptoms when he was hospitalized with covid-19 in the fall of 2020. Past presidents who didn't want the public to know the truth about their poor health have orchestrated elaborate cover-ups. After Woodrow Wilson suffered a major stroke in 1919, leaving him with a paralyzed left side, his doctor conspired with Wilson's wife to keep his condition hidden from his own Cabinet. Cleveland insisted the operation to remove his tumor be secretly performed on a friend's yacht, under the guise that he was on a fishing trip near his summer home on Long Island. The administration denied an initial report about the surgery, and the truth wasn't widely accepted until after Cleveland's death many years later, when one of his doctors publicly confessed. On the other hand, Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly ordered his press secretary to 'tell them everything' after suffering a heart attack in 1955. His surgeons regularly briefed the public after his heart surgery. But medical transparency is only as strong as the president wants it to be. Like regular Americans, the president is protected by medical privacy laws, so disclosing any health information is ultimately up to him. An additional challenge, former White House doctors and presidential historians say, is that there is no official requirement for how often a president should undergo an exam, what the exam should include and which of the results should be made public. 'There's nothing codified about what to do,' said Kuhlman, who also served on the White House medical unit under George W. Bush. White House doctors traditionally conduct an annual physical exam on the president and release a memo of varying length that includes vital signs, a summary of the physical examination and the results of blood tests. These memos generally conclude with some kind of pronouncement from the doctor that the president is fit to execute the duties of the presidency. Trump's and Biden's doctors have largely followed that pattern, although the reports on Biden's health have been significantly longer and more detailed than the reports on Trump. Kuhlman and Lawrence Mohr, who served as physician to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said they were never asked by any president to withhold medical information in their reports. Mohr said he recalls that there was 'never any question' about being candid about the president's health. 'You never lie; never, never say anything that's not true,' Mohr said. 'You put out a clear press release about what's going on, what to expect and you get it out there. If you don't do that, you end up with all sorts of speculation.' Reagan was 77 when he left office and five years later announced he had Alzheimer's disease. He faced similar questions about his fitness to serve. Mohr recollected administering the Mini-Mental State Examination — a test used to assess cognitive function — to the 40th president. Trump's doctors have given him a different cognitive test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. But cognitive tests are not standard practice. Neither George W. Bush nor Obama took one, Kuhlman said. But they were much younger while in office than Biden. 'I was fortunate to have 50-year-old patients instead of 80-year-old ones,' Kuhlman said.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tampa Police get 300 new lifesaving choking devices from New York-based company
The Brief A company based in New York donated choking rescue devices to the Tampa Police Department. The devices, which are called LifeVac, create a one-way suction to remove lodged food or objects from a choking victim. These devices will be distributed to officers soon. TAMPA, Fla. - A New York-based company donated 300 choking rescue devices to the Tampa Police Department. These devices, called LifeVac, create a one-way suction to remove lodged food or objects from a choking victim. "This is just another tool for us, especially for our youth, to be out there and provide another opportunity to save a life," Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said of the donation. The backstory Last month,a Tampa police officer used back blows to help save a toddler who was choking on a tomato. "That's the reason that we're getting this donation," Bercaw said Friday of the bodycam video. "[LifeVac inventor] Mr. Lih saw that video and said, 'I've got to get that product down here in a generous donation.'" "I knew as a parent, I'd be freaking out. I would be very distressed. So I tried to come up with something really simple. You push it, pull it, and that suction pulls it out," LifeVac President and Creator Arthur Lih said. These devices will be distributed to officers soon. Bercaw told FOX 13 the devices will be placed in patrol cars and will be used in schools and at Police Athletic League youth activities. Dig deeper As shown in LifeVac's online instructional video, the New York-based company said people should first follow choking protocols established by the American Red Cross. That means doing back blows and abdominal thrusts first. And if those actions don't work – or if those actions cannot be completed for whatever reason – then a LifeVac device can come into play. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) encourages people to follow established choking rescue protocols by the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association. In an April 2024 update, the FDA said these protocols do not include anti-choking devices: "The safety and effectiveness of anti-choking devices that are being sold over-the-counter have not been established; they are not FDA approved or cleared." Success Stories Just this week, a Georgia police officer used a LifeVac device to save a driver choking on a water bottle cap. Years ago, LifeVac devices were placed in every school in Sarasota County. The Source The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Ariel Plasencia.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
As measles spreads across the Americas, outbreaks in Mexico and Canada have also turned deadly
As measles cases in the United States continue to mount, neighboring countries Canada and Mexico are also experiencing significant outbreaks – all of which have been linked to at least one death. On Thursday, the chief medical officer of health of the Canadian province Ontario announced that an infant who was born prematurely with a measles infection had died. 'The infant contracted the virus before birth from their mother, who had not received the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine,' Dr. Kieran Moore said in a statement. 'While measles may have been a contributing factor in both the premature birth and death, the infant also faced other serious medical complications unrelated to the virus.' At least four people have died from measles in Mexico in 2025, and three people have died in the US: two children in Texas and one adult in New Mexico, all of whom were unvaccinated. This years' measles outbreaks are the biggest that Canada and Mexico have seen in decades, and the World Health Organization has warned that the 'overall risk of measles in the Americas Region is considered high.' Low vaccination rates are a key driver of this elevated risk assessment, the agency said. Mexico has reported at least 1,520 measles cases as of late May, according to data from the Pan American Health Organization. Canada reached measles elimination status in 1998, meaning that there has not been continuous spread of the virus for more than a year. But there have already been more cases reported so far this year than there were in the previous 27 years combined. At least 2,755 measles cases have been reported in Canada so far this year, according to federal data that was last updated on Monday, the vast majority of those which have been in Ontario residents. And the US has reported at least 1,168 measles cases so far this year, according to federal data published Friday – nearly 80% of which are associated with an outbreak centered in West Texas that has spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma and possibly Canada. It's the second highest number of cases that the US has reported since achieving measles elimination status in 2000. Significant shares of the measles outbreaks in the US, Canada and Mexico have been concentrated in Mennonite communities that are closely connected to each other – and that have historically had low vaccination rates due largely to minimal interactions with formal health care systems. However, in a recent webinar, experts from the Pan American Health Organization did not formally link outbreaks in the three countries to each other. 'The outbreak [in Mexico] started in Chihuahua, at the heart of Mennonite communities, who were very close to Texas through the border, but they're also close to other Mennonite communities in Canada,' Dr. Alvaro Whittembury, regional adviser for the Comprehensive Immunization Special Program, said in a presentation on Wednesday. 'It's important to show that although at first the outbreak starts in Mennonite communities … the vast majority of cases are outside of these communities, and they are sustained in the general population.' Only a small share of confirmed cases in the Americas have identified genetic sequences, experts from the Pan American Health Organization said, and there haven't been enough identical sequences to explicitly link cases across countries. In April, Mexico issued a warning for people traveling to the US and Canada due to high measles case rates. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also stepped up its guidance for travelers, advising that anyone traveling internationally should be vaccinated with two doses of the MMR vaccine. 'Anyone who is unvaccinated is at risk and I urge everyone, but especially those who may become pregnant, to ensure they have received two doses of the MMR vaccine, which will protect both a parent and baby,' Moore said in his statement Thursday. 'This vaccine has been safely used for over 50 years and is highly effective. Two doses provide nearly 100 per cent protection.'
