Austin doctor speaks on prostate cancer awareness

AUSTIN, Texas - September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. 

According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, in the U.S., 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. 

Dr. Kyle Keyes, a urologist with Texas Urology Specialist in Austin, joined FOX 7 Austin's Rebecca Thomas to discuss.

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REBECCA: So again, prostate cancer is quite common, but are there certain demographics who are more at risk?

DR. KEYES: Absolutely right. The first risk factor is just age. Unfortunately, the older all of us men get, the more likely we are to get it. And we're all running in America. We're all running about a 1 in 8 chance of getting prostate cancer at some point in our lives. That risk is certainly higher in African Americans and people with a Latina heritage.

REBECCA: Is there anything that men can do to reduce their risk of getting prostate cancer?

DR. KEYES: Unfortunately not. There are a handful of things they can do to increase their risk, like smoking and obesity can be risk factors, but there's nothing great to lower the risk. Below, about 1 in 8 chance.

REBECCA: So, just in general, try to be as healthy as possible and don't increase your risk as you just said. Let's talk about symptoms. What are some signs to watch out for?

DR. KEYES: Well, unfortunately, most symptoms that you get from prostate cancer don't happen until the very end stage of prostate cancer. And so that's why we've worked hard over the decades to find ways to find cancer early before the symptoms, but when we can still treat it. And that's why we've had the PSA blood test for over 30 years now to look for prostate cancer.

REBECCA: Okay. So let's talk about screenings. One of them being the PSA test. When did the screenings need to start, and how often should they happen?

DR. KEYES: So the prime age to look forward is going to be between men between 55 and 70. I hate to think of it as age. I like to think of it much more of how much life someone has left, and when they have decades of life left, it's worth screening for. But 55 to 70 is going to be the age and checking for a PSA every 2 to 3 years is accurate.

REBECCA: Now what if someone in your family has prostate cancer, say your father's or your grandfather has had prostate cancer? Do you need to be screened earlier, or do you still follow the regular 50 plus guidelines?

DR. KEYES: Absolutely. So, if you have a father with prostate cancer, it's going to double your lifetime risk. If you have a brother with it, that's going to quadruple your lifetime risk. And so we do ask men to start screening about ten years before their father or grandfather was found to have prostate cancer. And that gets down to about the age of 40 for some people.

REBECCA: So there's the PSA test. There is the physical exam. If a man is diagnosed with prostate cancer, what are the treatments? What treatments are available?

DR. KEYES: So we have three big buckets of treatment. The first is we can just watch it if it's small, slow growing and not causing a problem. Let's just keep an eye on it. The second big category is going to be surgery. The third big category can be radiation. And on broad strokes, surgery and radiation are going to be equally effective at controlling the cancer. Their differences are really going to come in their side effects. With surgery, there's going to be a whole lot of just heal up for a few months. With radiation, that's going to be much more. What side effects are we going to see a few years later?

REBECCA: But I think probably the most important thing is to get those checkups when you're supposed to.

DR. KEYES: Absolutely.

REBECCA: All right. Dr. Kyle Keyes with Texas Urology Specialist in Austin. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and sharing your expertise.