MILAN (ITALPRESS) – The prostate is a gland of the male genital system which has the task of producing and storing seminal fluid. It is located below the bladder and in front of the rectum, from which it is a few millimeters away. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in the male population in Italy and represents 18.5% of all cancers diagnosed in men. Despite the high incidence, the risk of the disease having an unfortunate outcome is low, especially if it is treated in time. The prognosis is increasingly encouraging: comparing the 2020 data with those of 2015, the reduction in the mortality rate is 15.6%. One of the main risk factors is age. The chances of getting sick are slim before age 40 but increase dramatically after age 50 and even more after that. About two out of three cancers are diagnosed in people over the age of 65. Another factor not to be overlooked is familiarity, as in many types of cancer. The risk of getting sick is doubled for those who have a blood relative, such as a father or a brother, with the same pathology. Prostate cancer is one of the topics addressed by Aldo Bocciardi, director of the urology department of the Niguarda Hospital in Milan, interviewed by Marco Klinger, for Medicina Top, the Italpress news agency’s TV format.
“It’s not a particularly aggressive tumor, on average: mortality has dropped considerably but above all the quality of life has improved,” explained Bocciardi.
What changes has the use of the robot in prostate surgery brought about? “The robot has given something new to all surgeries – she said – but in particular to urological surgery. It is not the future but the present and it has given indisputable and indispensable advantages in terms of well-being for patients”. Among other things, he underlined, “in terms of health, it has reduced the length of hospitalization. In particular on the functional results of the intervention for prostate cancer it was a revolution because the average hospitalization went from eight and a half days to two days”.
For Bocciardi “the key to reading must be seen in early diagnosis. On prevention – he continued – there is little to say: prostate cancer is an asymptomatic disease for which it is essential that the PSA, the blood test be done every year “. As for the value, “everyone can have a more or less low or high PSA. If there is constant growth – he continued – a specific exam is done, which is a particular magnetic resonance, then we proceed with a targeted biopsy”.
How does the quality of life of a 60-year-old change after surgery? “Sometimes the quality of life is better for a 60-year-old,” she pointed out. “The quality of life – she added – for a sixty-year-old is optimal. For example, a patient seven days after the operation went to his daughter’s wedding, something that was unthinkable twenty years ago”.
What improvements could there be in the future in prostate therapy? “A diagnosis as early as possible,” said Bocciardi. “There will certainly be – he added – an improvement in the histological diagnosis and I hope in the future the possibility of doing focal therapies and therefore exactly locating the tumor inside the prostate”.
-foto Italpress-
(ITALPRESS).