Prostate cancer. From the general practitioner's point of view

The study was supported by the County of Halland and the Department of Public Health of the County. The information about prostate cancer in the community of Kungsbacka was obtained from the Regional Cancer Registry of the Oncological Center, Lund, Sweden. In the community of Kungsbacka, Sweden, with about 48,000 inhabitants, a study was made comprising all subjects with prostate cancer during a five-year period. The incidence was 36 per 100,000 inhabitants per year. Most patients first visited a general practitioner. The most common symptoms which brought the patient to the doctor were urinary urgency, nycturia, starting problems, poor stream of the urinary flow, terminal dribbling and urinary retention. The prostatic gland had as judged from digital palpation a pathological shape or consistency or both in 95% of the cases. Means of patient's delay and doctor's delay were very long, 17.5 and 14.6 months, respectively. The mortality during the study period was 100% in patients in whom the cancer had spread extracapsularly. General practitioners have an important role in the diagnostic process. It is important to increase public knowledge about the symptoms of prostate cancer in order to obtain a shorter patient's delay, and to palpate the prostate whenever symptoms appear from the prostate region, in order to diagnose the prostate cancer at an earlier stage.