Prostate cancer symptoms and risk factors

What are the risk factors?

Factors that increase the risk of developing prostate cancer include:

• getting older – especially being aged 50 and over (more than 90% of people diagnosed with prostate cancer are aged 55 and over)
• family history of prostate, breast or ovarian cancer
• being of African (sub-Saharan) or African-American descent.

Prostate cancer is less common under the age of 50, but people aged 40 and over may have a higher risk of developing prostate cancer later in life if their prostate specific antigen (PSA) test results are higher than the typical range for their age. Find information about when to start PSA testing.

What are the symptoms?

Early prostate cancer rarely causes symptoms. Even people diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer may have no symptoms. Difficulty passing urine is not always a symptom of prostate cancer, but you should see your doctor if you are worried or the following symptoms are ongoing:

• frequent or sudden need to urinate
• blood in the urine or semen
• a slow flow of urine
• needing to get up at night to pass urine
• feeling like your bladder is not empty after passing urine
• unexplained weight loss
• pain in bones, e.g. the neck, back, hips or pelvis.

Guides to Best Cancer Care

Find an overview of what to expect at every stage of your prostate cancer care. This is a short guide to what is recommended, from diagnosis to treatment and beyond.

Does prostate cancer run in families?

A strong family history of cancer increases prostate cancer risk. You may have inherited a gene that increases your risk if you have:

• several close relatives on the same side of the family (can be your mother’s or father’s side) with prostate, breast and/or ovarian cancer, especially if due to a fault in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes
• a brother or father diagnosed with prostate cancer before the age of 60. In this case your risk is twice that of other people.

If you have a family history, tell your general practitioner (GP). As well as doing screening blood tests from age 45, they may refer you to a family cancer clinic. For more information, see What screening tests should I have.