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Women getting prostate cancer

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Prostate Cancer
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Posted 1/17/2013 2:01 AM (GMT 0)
Women are getting prostate cancer.  That's what I heard on the car radio this evening as I drove home from the pharmacy.  I can't quote it verbatim, but the commercial went something like this.  You have to imagine a soft, feminine voice saying all this:  "All across the country, thousands of women are getting prostate cancer.  That's right...women are getting prostate cancer.  That's because when a man get's prostate cancer, he doesn't get it alone.  Prostate cancer affects the man and his wife."

It then turns into an ad for Central Dupage Hospital in the Chicago suburbs, which is pushing its proton beam therapy with frequent ads on local major radio stations.  The ads claim that the protons stop at the designated spot within the body, destroying the cancer, but having less effect on neighboring sensitive tissues.  As a result, the ad claims, proton beam treatment produces fewer "debilitating" side effects than other treatments.  (They don't define "debilitating.")  Whether or not I agree with their claims is not my point.

I just thought it was a novel, attention-getting strategy to talk about "women getting prostate cancer."  Or maybe it just caught my attention because of my personal experience with prostate cancer.

Posted 1/17/2013 2:27 AM (GMT 0)
It's not really original. It's a sales pitch in this case, but I use the metaphor all the time after I first heard it years ago. Prostate cancer affects the whole family. I use it to teach men that attend our meetings to be cognizant of what their family feels as well when you tell them you have cancer. Men get scared and that's the initial reaction we all felt here. And sometimes we don't see it in our daughters, sons, wives, partners, and anyone close. But all feels terrible on initial reaction ~ and then some...

Tony
Posted 1/17/2013 2:33 AM (GMT 0)
that's like men getting breast cancer.  no, wait, men do get breast cancer.
Posted 1/17/2013 3:52 AM (GMT 0)
I wonder how many $/proton Central Dupage spends on adveriising?
Posted 1/17/2013 3:54 AM (GMT 0)
sounds like a cheesy sales pitch to me, i get the point, but find it patronizing and offensive.
just my take

david
Posted 1/17/2013 3:56 AM (GMT 0)
I ask the same question when I'm in SoCal and I hear the barrage of Loma Linda commercials. But then I'm biased...LOL I wnet to City of Hope and they too do a great deal of PCA Advertising...

LOL I was feature in one of those...

Tony
Posted 1/17/2013 4:27 AM (GMT 0)
Tony,

I hear you.

I'm tounge in cheek because i feel these guys are trying to scare the wives of G6 guys into undergoing treatment they may not need ... in order to pay off the very expensive equipment they bought ... or maybe it's because I wish I could get a piece of their advertising budget.
Posted 1/17/2013 10:51 AM (GMT 0)
sounds like a cheesy sales pitch to me, i get the point, but find it patronizing and offensive.
just my take


AGREE!
Posted 1/17/2013 11:06 AM (GMT 0)
Being a woman, I am not going to address the sales pitch perspective of this at all but I will say I am right there with my husband in his battle with this.
On a lighter side, I remember a colleague telling me that she was talking to a former colleague of ours, an intelligent woman, about my husband. This former colleague took a moment and asked in all seriousness, is this something I should have checked? And that wouldn't be in her husband but herself. Blew us away that she didn't know what the prostate was!
Posted 1/17/2013 12:45 PM (GMT 0)
Clock, odd that you should mention this ad...I too heard it while driving and when I heard the words "women get prostate cancer too" I couldn't believe it. But then, of course, listening to the ad it talked about how women are affected when their man is diagnosed.

The reality seems to be that surveys have shown that women make the majority of medical decisions for their family. My guess is that, sadly, this ad was taking advantage of those findings and targeting their "product" to women. Funny, they don't do that with breast cancer...usually when a woman has a mastectomy, she undergoes reconstruction fairly quickly to restore the breast. Some women have both boobs done and add a size or two to them! Their men gotta like that, though breast cancer is nothing to laugh at. Of course, everyone knows that breast cancer is far more serious than prostate cancer (said somewhat with tongue in cheek).
Posted 1/17/2013 3:36 PM (GMT 0)
When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be a discussion of the Skene's gland, a part of the female anatomy, sometimes called "the female prostate."

I assume you all know about this interesting bit of female anatomy already, but, quickly, it's a structure within the female reproductive tract that roughly corresponds to the prostate. If "she" had been a "he" then this component in utero would have gone on to become the prostate of the developing male fetus. In women, it is therefore a remnant of in utero development.

The Skene's gland issues fluid during sexual arousal, and in other ways is similar to the male prostate. And, like the prostate, there is an actual chance that it can become cancerous, although this is rare.

So, in a kind of a way, women can get "prostate cancer," but it is rare.
Posted 1/18/2013 1:11 AM (GMT 0)
Hi,

As big guy points out there is evidence of tissue "homolgous" to the prostate, which is along the urethra and may be diffuse in the cervix / uterus - See

http://jcp.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/22/jclinpath-2011-200455.extract .

(I can't figure out how to activate the hyperlink, so copy and paste if you would like to read - sorry - the URL button is strange - OR I am dense!)

Like the male prostate, it is secretory. Sometimes this tissue is more defined and referred to as the Skene / paraurethral gland. See

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/9/713.1.full .

If I recall correctly it is associated with "female ejaculation" (propulsive hyper-secretion). (I'll be proper). (Can't find ref)

All (almost?) male and female structures begin as the same structures in the embryo. These "primordial structures mature differently depending on the presence of the Y chromosome (which eventually result in expression of genes for synthesis of testosterone). Hence the testes are homologous to the ovaries, the glans penis is homologous to the ***oris, the labia majora is homologous to the scrotum, etc. So it makes perfect sense females have a "prostate" (after all, men have nipples!)

This tissue can become cancerous and does release PSA. See

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20505502.

I do recall that the PSA gene (KLK3 - on chromosome 19 - present in both males and females s expressed normally in female "ejaculate" (and breast milk??), though how much and what it does, I do not know. See

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/354

I don't know much more than that.

And yes, I think it is a sales pitch!

Chris
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