Is CT scan useful for prostate cancer? Know the symptoms of prostate cancer early

Prostate cancer is the most difficult disease to cure in men. Is CT scan useful for prostate cancer? In the process of treating prostate cancer, many tests are required. What is the role of CT scan? Today, let's learn more about it.

Prostate cancer symptoms early

The gradually enlarged prostate gland compresses the urethra and can cause progressive dysuria, which is manifested as thin urine stream, short range, slow urine flow, interrupted urine flow, dripping after urination, incomplete urination, labored urination, frequent urination, urgency, increased nocturia, and even urinary incontinence. Tumor compresses the rectum and can cause dysuria or intestinal obstruction, and can also compress the vas deferens to cause lack of ejaculation, compress the nerves to cause perineal pain, and can radiate to the sciatic nerve.

Prostate cancer can invade the bladder, seminal vesicle, and blood vessels and nerve bundles, causing hematuria, hematospermia, and impotence. Pelvic lymph node metastasis can cause edema of both lower limbs. Prostate cancer is often prone to bone metastasis, causing bone pain or pathological fractures and paraplegia. Prostate cancer can also invade the bone marrow and cause anemia or a decrease in the whole blood count.

Is CT scan useful for prostate cancer?

CT also has certain limitations in diagnosing early metastasis and local spread of cancer.

For example, when lymph node infiltration is suspected, excisional biopsy can reveal tiny tumor lesions. Lymph node angiography can show tiny filling defects in lymph nodes. However, CT can only show them when the lymph nodes are enlarged as a whole. For another example, when prostate cancer nodules are confined to the glandular substance, rectal digital examination can more accurately detect the infiltration of the bladder neck and seminal vesicle. However, CT can only be used as a means of staging cancer when the cancer nodules are large and the lesions are complex.

CT scans can show the anatomical relationship between the prostate and surrounding tissue structures.

Such as the infiltration of cancer into the adjacent tissues outside the gland and lymph node enlargement. The normal prostate CT scan has uniform density, clear size and glandular outline, and the size of the prostate is easy to estimate.

However, CT cannot accurately reflect the internal structure of the prostate and cannot distinguish between the gland and the glandular capsule. Although prostate nodules or irregular edge images can indicate prostate cancer, they are not specific, and smooth prostate edges cannot exclude cancer.

Therefore, CT cannot accurately distinguish between benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer, nor can it easily distinguish between stage A and B lesions.

From this we can see that CT examination can only play an auxiliary role in the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Only in the middle and late stages of cancer can CT examination show the metastasis of the cancer and help determine the tumor stage.

Whether a CT scan is needed for prostate cancer should be determined by the doctor.