We are back with Doctor Lester Borden,
the prostate Cancer medical
director at Cone Health,
and we've been discussing the disease
and what you need to know about it.
In the last segment, you mentioned
PSA screening for prostate cancer.
Doesn't elevated PSA always
mean that the man has cancer?
So no, not necessarily.
An elevated PSA simply means
that a man may be at a higher
risk for prostate cancer,
and it should prompt them to undergo
further testing or evaluation
by specialists at that point.
But there can be other reasons
to have an elevated PSA that
don't always mean cancer.
Now, there's no way to prevent the
disease, but are there steps that
men can take right now to reduce
their risk for prostate cancer?
Yeah, well, I typically
tell patients that a heart.
Lifestyles also prostate,
healthy lifestyle and so there's no
one thing that men can necessarily
do to prevent prostate cancer,
but they certainly may improve their
chances by eating a heart healthy diet,
regular exercise,
limiting or avoiding tobacco
and alcohol use and maintaining
appropriate body weight.
Many of the things that we all
need are or all know to do and
need to be doing better anyways.
General good health there.
OK, alright, so some men
put off going to the doctor.
We kind of touched on that
too in the last segment.
How concerning is that when it comes to
getting screened for prostate cancer?
Right. Well, as we discussed earlier,
prostate cancer will typically cause
absolutely no symptoms until it's
already reached an incurable stage.
So I would highly recommend men getting
their routine preventative health
screenings by their primary care provider
to avoid missing a prostate cancer at
a time when it still may be curable.
So listen to your wives.
Good advice all right.
Well, popular misconceptions are
out there about this disease.
Yeah, I think many men have gotten
a little bit of a mixed message
about prostate cancer over the years
with men sometimes hearing that
it's often not life threatening at
all and then sometimes the next day
hearing that it's lethal and the
second leading cause of cancer death.
And this seems like a paradox,
but in fact they're both right.
We now understand not all prostate
cancers are the same and probably
maybe the biggest change over the
past couple of decades in managing
prostate cancer has been that we
can now really differentiate between
between those aggressive and non
aggressive types of prostate cancer.
And so this has allowed us now.
Truly personalized care for each
individual man to suit their
particular situation.
So while many men may require
aggressive treatment such as surgery
or radiation for their cancers,
for most of the non aggressive prostate
cancers we now recommend something
called active surveillance or a
process basically of monitoring their
cancer rather than aggressive treatment
that may cause them side effects.
So truly moving toward more
personalized medicine.
And there's a lot of people don't go
to the doctor because they're like,
I just don't want to have
to pay that Doctor Bill,
or I don't have insurance,
or I've got a gap in insurance right now.
Cone Health Cancer Center has
several free screenings coming up.
Let's talk about who is eligible
and then how do they sign up?
Yeah. So we've created an early
detection prostate cancer program
through the Cancer Center at Cone Health.
And this is for men ages 45 to 69
in the community who either don't
have a regular physician or have
not had the opportunity to undergo
prostate cancer screening through
their primary care provider but are
interested in possibly doing so.
And what we do is provide education
about prostate cancer screening there
and then followed by a PSA blood
test if a man chooses to proceed.
And if interested,
you can call
336-832-0849 to register.
And these are typically
running all through September,
sometimes even in October,
right. And if you didn't get that number,
we're going to put it in the web story.
But I'm sure when you call cone
health as well, when you say I'm
looking for that free screening,
they'll direct you to the right spot.
All right. We've got about one minute left.
What final message?
You want to tell folks about prostate cancer?
Sure. I I think it's just important
that men become as educated as
they can about prostate cancer.
I mean, it's certainly a very
serious issue for many men,
but they shouldn't be fearful of it.
And with routine health checkups,
appropriate counseling,
most men will be diagnosed in early
stage where the impact of their cancer
and their life really can be minimized.
And we're really quite fortunate in
Greensboro to have some very highly
trained prostate cancer physicians,
some of the most up to date
technology for both diagnosing
and treating prostate cancer.
So for those men who will need treatment.
They should really feel better than
some of the best technology and
experience for treating prostate cancer
is right here in their own community
and they don't have to travel for it.
Thank you so much for your time.
We appreciate it. We don't want you to
miss any of this information here. In a
few minutes, we're gonna
have everything that we just
went over on our website.
Just head over to the two
year well-being section.