Prostate Health Awareness Month

September is Prostate Health Awareness Month and we are joined by Dr. Conrad Tobert, Urologist at Corewell Health to discuss warning signs and speaking with your doctor about your risk of prostate cancer. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This conversation could mean the difference between life and death,
a quick or a slow recovery. It's Prostate Cancer Awareness
Month and this is West Michigan's Morning newstee Kelly and
Kaita joined once again by doctor Conrad Tobrit, who is
a core well health urologist. Doctor. Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Today, absolutely, thank you for having me on every September.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
We attempt to raise awareness about prostate cancer before we
get to anything when it comes to risk factors and
early detection and full out prevention and treatment. Let's talk
a little bit about just how bad a problem prostate
cancer is.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Great question. Broadly, cancer is very common. It affects one
in eight man. Depending on the study, it can be
even one in seven men, and if you have other
characteristics and risk factors, it also is more common. So specifically,
if you have a family history or if you're African American,
you can have an rate of even one in six
chance of having prostate cancer. But that doesn't just tell

(00:59):
the whole story. It still is also the second most
common cancer that kills men, and about one in fifty
men die of prostate cancers. So while it's very common,
it still is also a very common killer for patients
and it's very important to get detected early.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
So doctor, what can we do with guys and to
let the guys in our families know about this. As
far as screening for prevention.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
The first thing when it comes to prevention and screening
of any disease, Steve, is to talk to your primary
care provider. So get linked in with the doctor who
sees you on a regular basis, who knows you as
a person. That's very important, I think to start specifically
for prostate cancer, we are blessed with a test that
is a simple blood test that you can go in
and it's called PSA prostatic specific antigen and it draws

(01:48):
your blood and depending on the levels of that blood
draw it gives us a warning sign for potential risks
for having prostate cancer present. And getting that done when
you are in your fifties if you have no risk
factors in your forties, if you do have risk factors
is very important and it's recommended that we do that
through being seventy years old. Again, getting this PSA blood

(02:11):
check regularly to make sure those levels are not out
of balance. It's also important to do a digital rectal
exam when you're with your primary care provider, because that
also allows for us to feel the prostate, to feel
for any abnormalities. A great example of this was former
President Biden had his prostate cancer detected with that digital
rectal exam. So it's a twofold screening process, one with

(02:33):
a blood draw and second with a physical exam.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Doctor talk to us then about the importance of that
early detection when it comes to treatment and survivability in
the long term.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
It makes sense if you fetch something early, you can
do more, You have more options to treat it. Right
if again, finding it early allows for conversations that span
from even what we call active survey wasn't which is
not an aggressive treatment. It's actually monitoring those disease and
it's in its early stages to thur greet or radiation therapy,

(03:08):
so we can really gauge where the disease at and
what is the health of the patient if we detect
it early versus if we find it in its later stages,
we unfortunately have to what I like to say, throw
the kitchen sink at it and you know, really aggressively
treat it. And it's also been shown that early detection
and early treatment helps people survive this disease, you know,

(03:31):
and end up passing away from a different cause. So
not dying of prostate cancer decreases those deaths from prostate cancer.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Is there anything else we can do behavioral behaviorally to
keep our prostate as healthy as possible.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
The biggest thing there is to obviously stay healthy, eat healthy.
There is a study that was recently shown that a
heart healthy diet, so just fruits and vegetables, you know,
low fat diet. Again, a heart healthy diet will provide
decrease risk of progressing your procesect cancer or dying your
procesect cancer. And as I said at the beginning, talking

(04:07):
to your primary care provider, getting in early, having a
doctor that you know and trust that you can talk
to regularly, and also just get regular screening and blood
tests will allow for those early detections. So taking care
of your body, exercise, eat well, and then also have
a physician that you see regularly, that knows you well

(04:28):
and can provide those up to date screens for not
just profitt cancer, but for all health.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Guys still want to go to the doctor, and the
importance of establishing a baseline so you can keep an
eye on things. Is so important and we'll keep talking
about it until we get your attention. Core Well Health
eurologist doctor Conrad Tobert, thank you so much for your
time this morning.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Thank you