The other is a blood test called the prostate-specific antigen test, or PSA, which measures a substance that typically increases in men with prostate cancer. If the PSA test suggests the presence of cancer, your doctor may do a prostate biopsy, taking a sample of your prostate tissue to be examined for cancerous cells. Doctors use a method called the Gleason system to estimate how aggressive a prostate cancer may be. Malignant cells are examined under a microscope and graded on a scale of 1 to 10 according to how different they look from normal cells. Doctors may also look at changes in your PSA level over time to gauge the cancer's aggressiveness.
Treatment depends on how far the cancer has advanced.
If tumor cells are found only in the prostate itself, doctors may remove your prostate or use radiation therapy to kill the cells. A newer treatment involves embedding tiny radioactive seeds in the prostate. If the cancer has spilled out of the prostate gland into surrounding tissue, hormone therapy in the form of pills, shots, or both can slow the growth of malignant cells, sometimes dramatically so. This may sound alarming, but it may make sense, particularly for older men, whose tumors are most likely to be slow growing. The majority of men who reach age 85, in fact, have cancerous prostate cells, but the disease is developing so gradually that it never threatens their health.