Former President Jooesph Biden has what a spokesman described as a “small nodule” in his prostate. What a worried one should be a patient with such a finding about the circumstances, the urologists said.
In some cases, the nodules are caused by inflammation, which can make the prostate feel more firm, or can cause calcifications in the prostate that feel nodules. These are benign.
They can also result from a common condition in older men, nodular benign prostate hypertrophy, in which non -threating nodules are formed in the prostate, expanding it. These do not represent any risk either.
But in cases of sausages, they can be cancer.
When a urologist feels a nodule in a man’s prostate, it is not always clear what to do with her, said Dr. Scott Eggener, a Urologist from the University of Chicago.
“There are absolutely times when it is vague and equivocal and you don’t know what it is,” he said that a growth may seem “a large and bulky rock that is almost certain that it is cancer.”
But, said Dr. Eggener, hey, why a doctor was manually examining Mr. Biden’s prostate first. Maybe it had a new symptom, such as a urinary problem, or pain, or a high level or specific prostate antigen, or PSA, a blood protein whose level increases with prostate cancer.
If the examination were only part of the detection of routine, it would be contrary to the issue of the guidelines of professional organizations that argue against the evaluation of the prostate for Mr. Biden’s men, unless they have unusually good health.
This is because prostate cancer tends to grow slowly, if it does, and they are very common in the age of Mr. Biden, said Dr. Eggener.
“At least 50 percent of his age has cancer in his prostate,” said Dr. Eggener. “The excessive majority is better without knowing.” They can that with slow growth cancer, not him. They may not have symptoms and may not threaten their lives.
The detection of a man from Mr. Biden is “very controversial,” said Dr. Judd Moul, Urologist at Duke University.
However, it is projected for the leg, so “I suppose that at this point it is water under the bridge,” said Dr. Moul. “Someone did a digital rectal exam and found something that considered abnormal.”
Now the problem will be how to evaluate the finding.
A usual method would be to do a PSA test. Alternatively, it could have a new urine test that seeks genetic cancer signals.
Doctors could examine Mr. Biden’s prostate with a magnetic resonance or ultrasound.
“Ultimately, if you think this nodule is prostate cancer, the final step would be a biopsy,” said Dr. Moul.
And then, if it is cancer, Mr. Biden would face the difficult decision to treat it or not, which may require surgery or radiation.
“Sometimes, when we face older knights with prostate nodules and other health problems, it can be appropriate to monitor it,” Dr. Go. Moul said.
Dr. Moul said that before following the path of more tests, he would first have a long conversation with a patient like Mr. Biden about what that could carry. If a patient discovers that he has prostate cancer, he has to decide whether to submit to treatment, which can be difficult or live with the knowledge that he has a fall and that he is choosing not to treat it.
“I would try to make a shared decision with him before moving on to any additional test,” Dr. Ir. Moul said.
Mr. Biden’s spokesman said he had Friday at a Philadelphia hospital and was under additional evaluation.
