Key Takeaways:

• Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men except skin cancer.
• There are a number of treatment options including active surveillance, surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
• The best way to screen for prostate cancer is with a PSA blood test.
• Physicians use risk stratification categories to determine which treatment option may be best for each patient. There are three categories: low, intermediate and high risk.
• For appropriately selected patients, surgery is an option, most commonly a robotic radical prostatectomy, in which the prostate and seminal vesicles are removed.

Savannah Urologist Dr. Corbin Norton also explains the importance of screening and other possible treatment options

Your primary care doctor noticed your PSA levels (prostate-specific antigen) are higher than normal, so you are sent to your local urologist who recommends further testing such as imaging and/or even a biopsy.

The results are not what you want to hear – it’s prostate cancer. But you are not alone. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer discovered in men, after skin cancer.

The good news is that it can often be treated successfully, and there are more treatment options for prostate cancer than ever before.

“There’s a lot of nuisance to all the different treatment options, the pros and cons, and I think it’s my role to counsel patients to get to the best course of treatment,” says Dr. Corbin Norton, urologist with Urological Associates of Savannah. “I think it’s very important that we utilize the tools that we know work, like PSA screening and new interventions and technology that help categorize how severe your prostate cancer is, so we can treat it appropriately.”

Related Article: You’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Now what? 

About prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a slow-growing disease that begins when cells in the prostate gland start to grow out of control. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society.

While prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men – behind lung cancer – only about one man out of 44 die from the disease. In fact, more than 3.5 million men in the United States who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point are still alive today, the ACS reports.

As you get older, the chances you may get prostate cancer increase, Dr. Norton says. The average age of men who are first diagnosed with prostate cancer is 67.

Other risk factors can include race and ethnicity and a family history of not just prostate cancer but also breast cancer due to the BRAC2 gene mutation.

How do I know I have prostate cancer?

There are not a lot of early warning signs of prostate cancer. Some of the symptoms of the disease, such as difficulty with urination and pelvic pain, tend to only present with advanced stage disease, Dr. Norton says.

“Our goal is to try to intervene way before it would reach that point,” Dr. Norton says.

One of the best ways to do that – screening. A prostate screening typically includes a digital rectal exam and a PSA blood test. Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) is a protein made by normal and cancerous cells in the prostate gland. A blood test can help determine a patient’s PSA level (nanograms per milliliter or ng/mL), which needs to be monitored every year or at least every other year for increases. Screening is typically recommended starting at 50, or sooner for high-risk patients who have a strong family history of prostate cancer, Dr. Norton says.

Related Article: Prostate Cancer Awareness: Men, now is the time to get screened 

Categorizing your prostate cancer

A unique thing about prostate cancer is the number of treatment options now available whether that’s active surveillance, surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy or hormone therapy. Which treatment is recommended depends on the “risk category” the patient falls in.

There are three risk stratification categories for prostate cancer: low-risk, intermediate and high-risk, Dr. Norton explains. Then based on risk category and also the patient’s health, age, life expectancy, prostate size and bladder health, he will go over all his treatment options with his healthcare team.

For example, if you are considered low-risk, your healthcare team may recommend active surveillance, which closely monitors a man’s prostate health with more frequent PSA blood tests, digital rectal exams and/or biopsies.

However, if you are intermediate or high-risk, especially if the cancer has spread outside the prostate, you will need some type of treatment, most commonly surgery or radiation therapy.

What to expect if you need surgery

The main type of surgery for prostate cancer is a radical prostatectomy, in which the entire prostate gland and the seminal vesicles are removed. Certain patients may also need to have surrounding lymph nodes removed as well. After the prostate is removed, the urethra is then surgically reconnected to the bladder, and a Foley catheter is left in place for a few days to help everything heal. Most patients are able to go home the very next day, some even the exact same day, Dr. Norton says.

The most common way to perform a prostatectomy is robotically, which Dr. Norton and fellow urologists right here in Savannah are trained to do.

At St. Joseph’s/Candler, surgeons use the da Vinci Surgical System to perform prostatectomies. Instead of a long cut down the abdomen required of open surgery, surgeons make five to six smaller incisions to access the internal anatomy and remove the cancer. Learn more here.

“Robotic surgeries tend to have better outcomes in terms of side effects, such as urinary incontinence, and recovery time,” Dr. Norton says.

If you do need an open prostatectomy, outcomes are comparable as far as eradicating the cancer. The same is true if you opt for radiation therapy.

“It’s truly the age of individualized care,” Dr. Norton says. “I’m excited to see the future, especially with genomic studies and all the technologies and treatments we are going to be able to offer in the future.”

Getting the support you need

The Lewis Cancer & Research Pavilion hosts a Prostate Cancer Support Group every other month. You can join other patients, survivors and caregivers for discussion and answers to any questions you have.

The next meeting at the time of this posting is Nov. 11, 2026. The meetings are held in the second-floor conference room at the LCRP, 225 Candler Drive, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

For more information, contact Jerry Thomas at savprc@gmail.com or 478-569-6118.