Consultant urologist Dr George Lee Eng Geap, or a.k.a Dr G, answers a question from a reader who is seeking clarity on whether he has prostate cancer.
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NewsTranscript
00:00As I mentioned before, the actual diagnosis of prostate cancer can be a bit tedious
00:05and that involves something called a biopsy
00:08Once we establish there is cancer, then we need to work out two things
00:14Essentially for any form of cancer, we need to know what is the grade and what is the stage
00:20The grade essentially describes how aggressive the tumour is
00:30For example, a low grade tumour probably will progress much much longer time and doesn't
00:35need such urgent attention
00:37But high grade tumour is something that may actually spread very quickly and therefore
00:43need a very urgent attention
00:45For prostate cancer, we grade it according to something called a Gleason grade
00:51So something that is very low grade is Gleason 1 plus 1 which equals 2, which is the lowest
00:57grade of prostate cancer
00:59But if it's Gleason 5 plus 5, which is the highest grade of cancer, this cancer really
01:05needs to be attended to as quickly as possible
01:08And that is something that we looked at as far as grade is concerned
01:13But don't be confused with something called staging
01:17Staging essentially looks at how extensive the tumour has spread
01:23For example, if it's stage 1, it's confined in the organ itself
01:27If it's stage 2, it's nearly about to come out
01:31If it's stage 3, it's probably involved with the lymph nodes
01:35And if it's stage 4, then it would have spread to the bones
01:39So how do we do that?
01:41In fact, for the bone analysis, we just do something called a bone scan
01:45An injection of isotopes that will actually highlight what area of the bone is involved
01:51and that will make sure that the bone is not involved
01:54And a CT scan or PET scan can also be done in order to make sure whether there's an active
02:02lymph node that may signify a stage 3
02:06So for anybody who is in the organ-confined disease, it's completely curable
02:12Next week, we're going to talk about how to eradicate prostate cancer
02:17So how do we do that?
02:19Then you need to stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G on the Spot