Latest / Heartwise / HW 2026-07-09 Understanding Your Prostate - Lee Jackson
Transcript
- 0:12Speaker 1: This is Heartwise, offering practical tips and time proven guidelines
- 0:17Speaker 1: to make your life healthier, happier, and more fulfilling. Today
- 0:21Speaker 1: you'll learn simple, Bible based principles for building and maintaining
- 0:25Speaker 1: optimum mental and physical health, all while deepening your relationship
- 0:29Speaker 1: with your creator. Here's your Heartwise host, doctor James markham Well.
- 0:38Speaker 2: I'm glad everyone has joined us today on Heartwise, and
- 0:42Speaker 2: I hope you're enjoying as nice a day as we
- 0:44Speaker 2: are here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There seems to be so
- 0:49Speaker 2: much in the news now about health and healthcare is
- 0:52Speaker 2: a big deal now because it takes up so much
- 0:55Speaker 2: of our time and everyone has health and we don't
- 0:57Speaker 2: want anyone to lose. Health is a big economic issue,
- 1:02Speaker 2: and in the times that we live in, no matter
- 1:04Speaker 2: whether it's the United States or Australia or wherever you
- 1:07Speaker 2: might live, everyone's interested in healthcare. And each week on Heartwise,
- 1:11Speaker 2: we try to bring in a guest that can enlighten
- 1:14Speaker 2: us and let us know what's out there that we
- 1:16Speaker 2: need to talk about. We have you send in your
- 1:18Speaker 2: questions for our website that's Heartwiseministries dot org, and we
- 1:23Speaker 2: have a lot of questions, we bring a specialist and
- 1:26Speaker 2: we've had a lot of questions regarding prostate urological issues.
- 1:31Speaker 2: That's the process in our bodies that deals with are
- 1:35Speaker 2: eliminating of waste through the kidneys. And we have a
- 1:38Speaker 2: specialist today, doctor Lee Jackson, who is a urologist that
- 1:41Speaker 2: practices at Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And Lee, we
- 1:46Speaker 2: want to welcome you to to Heartwise.
- 1:48Speaker 3: Well, thank you a thrill for me to be here.
- 1:50Speaker 2: Well, we're just glad. Now what got you interested in
- 1:53Speaker 2: being a urologist? All the things you could have gone into.
- 1:56Speaker 3: It's a good question. You know, when you're going through
- 1:59Speaker 3: medical scio, you're actually required to start making some decisions
- 2:03Speaker 3: early on as to what you're going to do. And
- 2:06Speaker 3: I knew that I wanted to be a surgeon. And
- 2:10Speaker 3: I wound up just by accident of rotation assignments with
- 2:15Speaker 3: a lot of guys that were going into urology, and
- 2:18Speaker 3: I found them to be very easygoing, personable. I got
- 2:22Speaker 3: along well with them. I had not thought of urology
- 2:25Speaker 3: before that. I'm primarily interested in orthopedics, for instance, but
- 2:29Speaker 3: I'm not very good at working in the garage and
- 2:31Speaker 3: just power tools. I was not comfortable with them, and
- 2:36Speaker 3: I liked the personality of these guys going into eurology,
- 2:39Speaker 3: I look carefully at it and it seemed to suit
- 2:41Speaker 3: my personality well and good. So that's why I pursued it.
- 2:44Speaker 2: Well, you know a lot of our listeners out there
- 2:47Speaker 2: to then, the word urology is just a big word.
- 2:50Speaker 2: How would you describe what urology is and what.
- 2:53Speaker 3: You do well? And that word oftentimes puts people off.
- 2:58Speaker 3: I mean I don't get a lot of questions at part,
- 3:00Speaker 3: for instance, once they truly understand what we do. Urologists are,
- 3:06Speaker 3: it's a subspecialty of surgery. We're specifically trained to treat
- 3:11Speaker 3: diseases of the urinary track, kidney's bladder, prostate, and genitalia.
- 3:15Speaker 2: Okay, great, Well, what we've done is we have a
- 3:18Speaker 2: lot of questions that come into our website from literally
- 3:20Speaker 2: all over the world, and we want to just jump
- 3:22Speaker 2: into those and answer that for our listeners right now,
- 3:24Speaker 2: because if one person has that question, I found out
- 3:27Speaker 2: probably one hundred people have that question. This question has
- 3:30Speaker 2: to do with PSA, and we're going to have to
- 3:31Speaker 2: explain what that is. It says when should a PSA
- 3:35Speaker 2: be ordered, what does this test actually measured and when
- 3:38Speaker 2: it is useful? And I heard that there's recent recommendations
- 3:42Speaker 2: saying that we might not should check that routinely. So
- 3:45Speaker 2: let's start talking about PSA.
- 3:47Speaker 3: Very good, that's a great question. There's not a short
- 3:50Speaker 3: answer to that. Okay, do the best I can. PSA
- 3:54Speaker 3: stands for prostatic specific antigen antigen just being another name
- 3:59Speaker 3: for protein. So the PSA is a benign, harmless, normal
- 4:04Speaker 3: protein that is made only by the prostate. So we
- 4:08Speaker 3: can use PSA its changes, its behavior, its level to
- 4:14Speaker 3: estimate what may be going on in the prostate. Where
- 4:18Speaker 3: the controversy comes in is that it is commonly used
- 4:21Speaker 3: to estimate a man's risk for having prostate cancer. But
- 4:24Speaker 3: because it's specific just to the prostate and not specific
- 4:28Speaker 3: to cancer, we have to be very careful about how
- 4:31Speaker 3: we interpret it. Just because a PSA may be increasing
- 4:34Speaker 3: or is it a what we may consider a high level,
- 4:38Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily mean that a man has prostate cancer. So
- 4:42Speaker 3: we interpret the PSA and change in PSA over time
- 4:48Speaker 3: in the context of other risk factors for prostate cancer
- 4:52Speaker 3: with ethnicity. For instance, African Americans have an increased risk
- 4:57Speaker 3: family history. It does tend to run in families what
- 5:00Speaker 3: the prostate feels like on exam, and then we may
- 5:07Speaker 3: pursue our investigation with a biopsy if we think that
- 5:11Speaker 3: man is at risk for prostate cancer based on his
- 5:13Speaker 3: PSA level. But an elevated PSA in and of itself
- 5:17Speaker 3: does not mean that someone has prostate cancer. So it's
- 5:20Speaker 3: a bit of a blunt instrument.
- 5:22Speaker 2: Now I'm going to hold you right now. When I
- 5:24Speaker 2: first started medicine years ago, we didn't have that test.
- 5:27Speaker 2: We just did the old digital rectal examination, just felt it,
- 5:31Speaker 2: and we still do that.
- 5:32Speaker 3: We do again because we need as much information as
- 5:37Speaker 3: possible to properly interpret the PSA. And like you, when
- 5:42Speaker 3: I was in medical school and going through residency, we
- 5:45Speaker 3: didn't have PSA and prostate cancer is typically a silent
- 5:51Speaker 3: condition and the first symptoms are from metastases or advanced disease.
- 5:57Speaker 3: So about the only people that I was trained to
- 6:02Speaker 3: take care of with prostate cancer had advanced disease or metastases.
- 6:06Speaker 3: Our urology wards were filled with men dying and suffering
- 6:11Speaker 3: from the consequences of advanced prostate cancer. It was terrible.
- 6:16Speaker 3: And when PSA became available in the late eighties and
- 6:19Speaker 3: really started taking effect in about nineteen ninety. Now we
- 6:23Speaker 3: were able to look for prostate cancer while it was
- 6:26Speaker 3: early confined to the prostate and we could have a
- 6:30Speaker 3: meaningful impact on the disease. And in fact, since nineteen
- 6:35Speaker 3: ninety since we've been actively looking for prostate cancer, intervening
- 6:40Speaker 3: early when needed, the mortality rate or death rate from
- 6:45Speaker 3: prostate cancer has fallen forty percent. That's pretty dramatic. You
- 6:49Speaker 3: would think that that would be celebrated rather than criticized
- 6:52Speaker 3: and questioned. The other thing that's often overlooked and not
- 6:58Speaker 3: mentioned is the incidence of metastases. And there's a considerable
- 7:02Speaker 3: amount of suffering that goes with having metastases from prostate cancer.
- 7:06Speaker 3: That has fallen seventy five percent. When when again, when
- 7:10Speaker 3: I was in training, most everybody presented with metastases. Now
- 7:15Speaker 3: you see it about four percent of the time. It's
- 7:18Speaker 3: just about been eliminated because of PSA testing.
- 7:22Speaker 2: Right, so there has been great great Now now we
- 7:25Speaker 2: talked about when is it used.
- 7:27Speaker 3: Well, good question. When it depends on one situation, if
- 7:32Speaker 3: one has other risk factors such as ethnicity or family history.
- 7:36Speaker 3: I have a family history, my father had prostate cancer.
- 7:40Speaker 3: So I check mine pretty pretty regularly. But I advise
- 7:45Speaker 3: young men who have a family history, particularly if they
- 7:48Speaker 3: have a strong family history grandfather, uncle, father, all the
- 7:51Speaker 3: male members. I suggest they check a baseline PSA at
- 7:54Speaker 3: age thirty five. It should be less than one. If
- 7:57Speaker 3: it is, then start checking it annually at a If
- 8:01Speaker 3: they don't have a family history or other risk factors,
- 8:05Speaker 3: then just begin maybe a baseline at age forty, check
- 8:09Speaker 3: it again at forty five. As long as it's less
- 8:11Speaker 3: than one, then they can start annually at fifty. Others
- 8:14Speaker 3: will just start annually at age forty. So the when
- 8:18Speaker 3: to check it and the frequency to check it depends
- 8:21Speaker 3: on whether or not one has other risk factors.
- 8:24Speaker 2: Now I was I recently had a gentleman that I
- 8:27Speaker 2: was serving as a general internist on and as part
- 8:31Speaker 2: of his everything, I did a full exam and checked
- 8:34Speaker 2: his PSA and I got a letter back from the
- 8:37Speaker 2: insurance company saying that they would not cover for it.
- 8:39Speaker 2: Was I a bad doctor in ordering a PSA without
- 8:41Speaker 2: a gentleman with risk factors?
- 8:43Speaker 3: No, of course not. That was being very responsible doctor. Unfortunately,
- 8:51Speaker 3: our payers, insurance companies, bureaucrats in our government who are
- 8:56Speaker 3: making recommendations that the insurance companies follow don't see the
- 9:04Speaker 3: value in PSA and have actually made a recommendation just
- 9:07Speaker 3: recently in an official capacity, to stop checking PSA.
- 9:11Speaker 2: Yeah, and yet you've told me in your career you've
- 9:13Speaker 2: see less metastases and we help save lives and prevent disease.
- 9:18Speaker 2: And that's sort of been well documented.
- 9:21Speaker 3: It is well documented. And now the flip side of
- 9:23Speaker 3: that is many prostate cancers don't need treatment. I mean,
- 9:27Speaker 3: the confusing thing about prostate cancer and what makes it
- 9:31Speaker 3: different from other cancers is that it is a highly
- 9:34Speaker 3: variable cancer. There are cancers that are indolent and trivial
- 9:38Speaker 3: and just need to be watched. We don't need to intervene.
- 9:41Speaker 3: They don't present a threat to that man during his
- 9:44Speaker 3: natural lifetime. And then there are other cancers that account
- 9:47Speaker 3: for the thirty to thirty two thousand deaths we see
- 9:49Speaker 3: each year. So the struggle is to sort out the trivial, indolent,
- 9:55Speaker 3: harmless prostate cancer from the lethal prostate cancer. And in
- 10:00Speaker 3: the course of diagnosing all these early prostate cancers, there
- 10:04Speaker 3: have been and continue to be instances of overdiagnosis over treatment.
- 10:11Speaker 2: Well just say that thought when about ready to go
- 10:14Speaker 2: to break, and after the break, we're going to continue
- 10:16Speaker 2: to talk about prostate cancer, prostate specific antigen. We're talking
- 10:21Speaker 2: with a specialist, doctor Lee Jackson, Urology. Stay with us.
- 10:25Speaker 2: We're going to be right back after this short break
- 10:28Speaker 2: on heartwise.
- 10:43Speaker 1: In his book The Ultimate Prescription, now available from Tendale
- 10:47Speaker 1: House Publishers, Cardiologists doctor James Markham writes, I was reading
- 10:52Speaker 1: a recent poll of men who were asked who they
- 10:54Speaker 1: thought was the most influential male in the world today.
- 10:57Speaker 1: Number one on the list was Don Draper, a character
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- 11:16Speaker 1: influential character, market him as an ideal to the world,
- 11:20Speaker 1: and affect the minds of a large segment of the population.
- 11:23Speaker 1: That same media is doing the same thing when it
- 11:26Speaker 1: comes to telling us how to build and maintain optimum health.
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- 11:34Speaker 1: dot Com and wherever quality books are sold. To learn
- 11:37Speaker 1: more about health from a biblical perspective, visit Heartwiseministries dot org.
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- 11:53Speaker 1: is not the result of favorable genes of the right
- 11:55Speaker 1: combination of pharmaceuticals. No, optimum health is the result of
- 11:59Speaker 1: making the right choices each and every moment of each
- 12:02Speaker 1: and every day. If you're like me, you're probably a
- 12:05Speaker 1: little confused about what the media and marketing moguls are
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- 12:52Speaker 2: I'm welcome back to Heartwise. I'm doctor James Markham and
- 12:55Speaker 2: our special guest here today is doctor Lee Jackson, and
- 12:59Speaker 2: he's a specialist in neurology. We've been talking about that
- 13:02Speaker 2: and it's such an interesting thing that males especially should
- 13:06Speaker 2: pay attention to, and females who have males in their
- 13:09Speaker 2: life should pay attention to, because we've been specifically talking
- 13:12Speaker 2: about prostate cancer answering a question about that. In our
- 13:16Speaker 2: last segment, we talked about PSA prostate specific antigen, and
- 13:20Speaker 2: in our discussions doctor Jackson, it seems to me as
- 13:24Speaker 2: a cardiologist that here we have a test that actually
- 13:27Speaker 2: has been shown to save lives, limit the metastases and suffering,
- 13:33Speaker 2: and yet we're taking that test away where perhaps maybe
- 13:36Speaker 2: we should spend money and learn how to use that
- 13:39Speaker 2: test appropriately exactly.
- 13:41Speaker 3: I mean, that makes perfect common sense, yet that's not
- 13:43Speaker 3: what we're seeing. It's very clear that prostate cancer is
- 13:47Speaker 3: this highly variable cancer that presents different levels of threat
- 13:50Speaker 3: to different individuals. We have a test that can help
- 13:54Speaker 3: us find prostate cancer, and then the goal would be
- 13:57Speaker 3: to differentiate and developed tools to distinguish one someone who
- 14:04Speaker 3: needs treatment and is at risk and someone who doesn't,
- 14:06Speaker 3: and be very reassuring to that person that this kind
- 14:09Speaker 3: of cancer isn't going to hurt you. So our efforts
- 14:13Speaker 3: at research should be particularly with genetic labeling, you know,
- 14:17Speaker 3: genetically sequence these cancers. And this is being done, but
- 14:20Speaker 3: I would love to see, you know, much more resources
- 14:22Speaker 3: being brought to that so that.
- 14:23Speaker 2: We could be very without checking the PSA which is
- 14:26Speaker 2: so commonly done, and finding out early if there's a problem,
- 14:31Speaker 2: we're going to lose the We're going to start going
- 14:33Speaker 2: followed back the way we were twenty years ago exactly.
- 14:35Speaker 3: We're going to go right back to where we were
- 14:37Speaker 3: twenty years ago. It's interesting. I believe the panel that
- 14:44Speaker 3: made this recommendation didn't have any specialists on it by design,
- 14:47Speaker 3: and the consequence as they're trying to review all the literature,
- 14:52Speaker 3: the consequence of them not having any specialists on their
- 14:56Speaker 3: panel is that they didn't have any organizational understanding or
- 15:00Speaker 3: memory of the progress that's been made over twenty years
- 15:03Speaker 3: since PSA helped us find prostate cancer early. Find it early,
- 15:08Speaker 3: we can have a meaningful impact if we wait for
- 15:11Speaker 3: symptoms and find it late. We can't.
- 15:14Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that goes with a lot of
- 15:16Speaker 2: the other malignancies, you know, whether it be colon cancer
- 15:19Speaker 2: or dermatologic cancer. Only makes sense, right. So I hope
- 15:22Speaker 2: everyone out there that's hearing this, and doctor Jackson thank
- 15:26Speaker 2: you for sharing this, because there's an awareness that needs
- 15:28Speaker 2: to get out there. You know, the media has many
- 15:30Speaker 2: different ways to If people don't have full knowledge, it's
- 15:33Speaker 2: hard to make good decisions. Maybe these people that made
- 15:36Speaker 2: these policy decisions didn't really understand the course of what
- 15:40Speaker 2: what's happened over the last twenty thirty years.
- 15:42Speaker 3: Well, I think that's the only way to explain this
- 15:44Speaker 3: very puzzling recommendation. To not look for something that that
- 15:49Speaker 3: you can have a positive impact on if you know
- 15:51Speaker 3: it's there, to put your head in the sand doesn't
- 15:53Speaker 3: make any sense.
- 15:54Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think we answered that question pretty pretty well.
- 15:57Speaker 2: Let's go on to another question that's come into our
- 15:58Speaker 2: Heartwise Ministry website. It says I have a family history
- 16:03Speaker 2: of prostate cancer, and it says what can I do
- 16:07Speaker 2: to lower my risk of developing this cancer? My father
- 16:10Speaker 2: and uncle both had cancers in their sixties, and I
- 16:13Speaker 2: am now forty two.
- 16:16Speaker 3: Well, the most important thing you can do is be
- 16:18Speaker 3: vigilant in looking for cancer. It does run in families. Again,
- 16:23Speaker 3: I know this personally because I have a family history.
- 16:26Speaker 3: There are probably different causes for different prostate cancer. Some
- 16:31Speaker 3: may be caused by a virus. For instance, there is
- 16:34Speaker 3: an inherited form which this individual is at risk for.
- 16:37Speaker 3: There may not be anything he can do at all
- 16:41Speaker 3: to prevent him from getting it, but if he is
- 16:44Speaker 3: going to, if he does develop it, he needs to
- 16:46Speaker 3: find it early. Just as a general recommendation, it is
- 16:49Speaker 3: clear that a heart healthy diet is a prostate healthy diet,
- 16:55Speaker 3: so I would recommend that for anyone, regardless of their
- 16:58Speaker 3: other risk factors.
- 17:00Speaker 2: You know, one thing that I've noticed this field called epigenetics.
- 17:04Speaker 2: You know what turns on our genes? You know, it
- 17:06Speaker 2: seems like we don't really know right now what turns
- 17:09Speaker 2: on certain genes. Would it be cancer gene? But if
- 17:12Speaker 2: they are turned on, we want to find out quickly,
- 17:15Speaker 2: And it seems like that field is so complicated that
- 17:17Speaker 2: we're not going to understand that field. You know, whether
- 17:20Speaker 2: an individual, whether it's turned on by a carcinogen like
- 17:23Speaker 2: a cigarette smoke or anything and I guess that that
- 17:26Speaker 2: was one of the things I get. This person was
- 17:27Speaker 2: probably trying to ask, is if he stays away from cigarettes,
- 17:30Speaker 2: was that going to help lowers risk of prostate cancer?
- 17:32Speaker 2: You mentioned diet, so you know those type of things.
- 17:35Speaker 2: But it only makes sense if you can't figure out
- 17:37Speaker 2: what causes disease. You want to detect it early and
- 17:40Speaker 2: treat it exactly right. And our next question has to
- 17:43Speaker 2: deal with that. It says, my father has been diagnosed
- 17:45Speaker 2: with prostate cancer, doctor Jackson, and what will be his
- 17:49Speaker 2: possible treatment options. I know you cannot be specific, but
- 17:52Speaker 2: any information will help. Is he's scared to death and
- 17:55Speaker 2: is not sure if he wants anything done at all,
- 17:58Speaker 2: So let's just give some just generalities about prostate cancer.
- 18:01Speaker 2: Tru sure.
- 18:01Speaker 3: Well, when I can tell you, when I'm speaking with
- 18:03Speaker 3: someone in the office it's come to me with a
- 18:05Speaker 3: new diagnosis of prostate cancer, I want them to understand
- 18:08Speaker 3: how we make management recommendations. So I explain, first of all,
- 18:12Speaker 3: as we've mentioned earlier, that prostate cancer is a highly
- 18:14Speaker 3: variable cancer, so it's important that we know what kind
- 18:17Speaker 3: of prostate cancer man has. I reassure them that most
- 18:20Speaker 3: prostate cancers grow slowly, so we always look at the
- 18:23Speaker 3: risk that that particular cancer presents to him in the
- 18:26Speaker 3: context of his life expectancy, you know, when in his
- 18:29Speaker 3: lifetimeed it occur, what other health issues are there that
- 18:32Speaker 3: may be of more immediate concern, and then we make
- 18:34Speaker 3: recommendations for managing that risk over that life expectancy with
- 18:38Speaker 3: one goal in mind, and that is that nobody die
- 18:40Speaker 3: from prostate cancer. We don't want that for anybody, because
- 18:44Speaker 3: it is a terrible death, but we don't have to
- 18:45Speaker 3: do the same thing to every person in order to
- 18:48Speaker 3: achieve that goal. So depending on what kind of prostate
- 18:52Speaker 3: cancer he has, what risk category, we will stratify men
- 18:56Speaker 3: into one of four categories of risk and then manage
- 18:58Speaker 3: each category a little different depending on where he falls,
- 19:02Speaker 3: and that will determine what the management recommendations are, and
- 19:05Speaker 3: it may range from active surveillance doing nothing to intervention
- 19:10Speaker 3: with either radiation or surgical management. Well, we may need
- 19:13Speaker 3: in some high risk guys to combine those.
- 19:16Speaker 2: So one size doesn't fit all.
- 19:18Speaker 3: Not by any means. This is highly variable and you
- 19:21Speaker 3: really have to tailor your recommendations to that man's specific condition.
- 19:24Speaker 2: So there's an art to this after all. After all, Now,
- 19:29Speaker 2: now that's interesting, and I know you're an expert at
- 19:32Speaker 2: robotic surgery. Now what type of person might benefit from
- 19:36Speaker 2: having robotic surgery? And tell our audience what is robotic surgery.
- 19:40Speaker 3: Well, robotic surgery is really just a laparoscopic approach, meaning
- 19:44Speaker 3: we don't make an incision on the surgeon's hands or
- 19:46Speaker 3: not inside. It's a bit of an advance on laparoscopic surgery,
- 19:51Speaker 3: and that the instruments that mimic the motions of the
- 19:55Speaker 3: surgeon's hands are actually attached to a machine. The instruments
- 20:00Speaker 3: themselves are about the size of a matchhead. These are
- 20:03Speaker 3: very small. They move like your hands do. But rather
- 20:07Speaker 3: than me holding those instruments, they're attached to the machine.
- 20:10Speaker 3: My fingers fit into straps in another part of the machine.
- 20:13Speaker 3: I make the motions of an operation. These little instruments
- 20:16Speaker 3: mimic those motions and carry out the operation really without
- 20:20Speaker 3: me ever touching the guy. The advantage to that is
- 20:23Speaker 3: he gets better, faster, much quicker, you know, on the
- 20:26Speaker 3: order of a couple of weeks rather than a few months. Now,
- 20:28Speaker 3: this is important and important advance because the men that
- 20:35Speaker 3: generally need to give their most serious consideration to surgical
- 20:38Speaker 3: management of their prostate cancer. Are guys who have a
- 20:42Speaker 3: relatively long life expectancy, Guys in their forties, fifties.
- 20:45Speaker 2: And sixties.
- 20:45Speaker 3: Well, that age group, they're still working, and this technique,
- 20:49Speaker 3: this approach allows them to return to work in normal
- 20:53Speaker 3: activity within a couple of weeks.
- 20:55Speaker 2: Okay, so what type of individual might you recommend having
- 21:00Speaker 2: robotic surgery on their prostate?
- 21:01Speaker 3: Yeah, if I've got a man in his forties, fifties,
- 21:04Speaker 3: or sixties who's otherwise healthy, he's got a life expectancy
- 21:07Speaker 3: that exceeds fifteen years, and he has a clinically important
- 21:12Speaker 3: prostate cancer, not an indolent or trivial one, but one
- 21:15Speaker 3: that is likely to progress during his lifetime. And we
- 21:18Speaker 3: and then this is a fellow that I'm going to
- 21:21Speaker 3: advise that we need to intervene, and intervene in a
- 21:24Speaker 3: meaningful way so that he lives out his natural life
- 21:26Speaker 3: expectancy free of prostate cancer. And surgical management for that
- 21:30Speaker 3: young person is the best way to achieve that. And then,
- 21:34Speaker 3: as an approach to surgical management, let's take advantage of
- 21:36Speaker 3: this laparoscopic approach with robotic technology rather than an open
- 21:41Speaker 3: procedure which carries a much greater burden of treatment.
- 21:45Speaker 2: And you can take out the entire prostate. That's this procedure. Yeah, okay.
- 21:49Speaker 2: Now a lot of times when I used to practice
- 21:51Speaker 2: internal medicine, we used to feel a prostate and not
- 21:54Speaker 2: be right, and they used to do biopsies. Are you
- 21:56Speaker 2: still doing that? And can you do that with a
- 21:58Speaker 2: robotic procedure?
- 22:00Speaker 3: Biopsies are done with transrector ultrasound guide spring loaded needles.
- 22:05Speaker 3: I will commonly suggest that a man be sedated, similar
- 22:09Speaker 3: to sedation used for colonoscopy, just you can do a
- 22:11Speaker 3: better study. I think it's much more comfortable. But that's
- 22:15Speaker 3: not required. Many of these can be very safely done
- 22:17Speaker 3: in the office. But then those biopsies tell us what
- 22:22Speaker 3: kind of prostate cancer we have, helps us stratify them
- 22:25Speaker 3: into a risk category, and then that guide's management recommendations.
- 22:28Speaker 2: Wow. So I hope our listeners out there are understanding
- 22:32Speaker 2: that that you know, prostate is a cancer that have
- 22:35Speaker 2: detected early can save lives, yes, and save you know,
- 22:39Speaker 2: complications downstream, and every man, especially those with risk factors,
- 22:43Speaker 2: needs to have the prostate examined by by your you know. Nowadays,
- 22:48Speaker 2: I'm not sure how many people are good at examining prostates,
- 22:50Speaker 2: you know, because everyone got used to the prostate specific antigen,
- 22:54Speaker 2: and if they take that away from us, boy, it's
- 22:56Speaker 2: going to be behove every whole generation to learn to
- 22:59Speaker 2: feel what a prostrate should and shouldn't feel like.
- 23:01Speaker 3: Well, there are new studies being developed. There's a PSA
- 23:05Speaker 3: being a normal protein that's specific to the prostate but
- 23:08Speaker 3: not cancer specific. There is a new test available called
- 23:12Speaker 3: PCA three prostate cancer gene three, which is a protein
- 23:16Speaker 3: specific to cancer. We collected in the urine. It's fairly new,
- 23:20Speaker 3: but I think we'll see new technologies like that available
- 23:24Speaker 3: that are more specific to prostate cancer so that we
- 23:26Speaker 3: can still find it early.
- 23:28Speaker 2: Well that's great. Well, we want to thank you doctor
- 23:30Speaker 2: Lee Jackson for being with us on heartwise. If you
- 23:32Speaker 2: want to get a hold of Lee Jackson, you can
- 23:34Speaker 2: go to the website but Moral dot org and there's
- 23:37Speaker 2: a way and to find a physician. You can look
- 23:38Speaker 2: him up. There's so much more to talk about urology,
- 23:42Speaker 2: from stones to cancer and infections. We're going to have
- 23:44Speaker 2: doctor Jackson back again. If you have questions, send him
- 23:46Speaker 2: to our website Heartwiseministries dot org, wishing you the best
- 23:50Speaker 2: of health. I'm doctor James Barkum with doctor Lee Jackson.
- 23:53Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
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