What is the prostate?

The prostate is a small gland at the base of the bladder. It produces a fluid which protects and nourishes sperm. At ejaculation, the fluid mixes with sperm and secretions from other glands to produce the ejaculate.

The location of the prostate, close to the bladder and surrounding the urethra (urine outlet tube) means that conditions which affect it such as enlargement or inflammation can cause urinary symptoms.

As men grow older, urinary symptoms are very common, in fact about 1 in 4 men over 40 will notice one or more symptoms. These can include frequent need to urinate, slow stream, starting and stopping and urgent need to urinate. For many, such symptoms raise the question of prostate disease.

Common prostate diseases

Benign prostate enlargement (BPE)

Benign prostate enlargement (BPE) is the most common prostate-related cause of urinary symptoms.

BPE should not be confused with prostate cancer - the two conditions are quite different and one cannot turn into the other.

For more details on BPE see our section on urinary symptoms.

Prostatitis

Prostatitis is inflammation of the prostate and another condition which can cause urinary symptoms.

Prostatitis can also cause pain in the lower abdomen, pain urinating, chills and fever and can be a very debilitating condition.

For more information, see this information on prostatitis.

Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is less common than benign prostate enlargement, but, is now the most frequently diagnosed cancer amongst Australian men, after skin cancer.

Prostate cancer most often grows in the outer section of the prostate and does not usually cause symptoms at an early stage.

Understandably prostate cancer causes a great deal of concern in the community, however, there are many features of prostate cancer which make it one of the least threatening of cancers:

• Prostate cancer is usually slow growing.
• After diagnosis, a majority of men live, with a high quality of life, for 10 years or more.
• When caught early enough and treated with either surgery or radiotherapy, prostate cancer can be cured.

Get informed

After a diagnosis, there are many questions: how threatening is my cancer? Do I need treatment now or can it wait? Which treatment is best?

To understand answers to these questions, it can be helpful to have some background information.

The PHIP information is a good place to start - it contains information relating to the different stages of prostate cancer.

We hope that this website will give you some of that information and point you to other sources.