Duke Medical Minutes are produced by local sports radio affiliates, and allow Duke specialists to give a brief snapshot into health offerings at Duke.

In this episode, Michael Ferrandino, MD, discusses the detection and treatment of prostate cancer.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: Today we’re talking with Dr. Michael Ferrandino, assistant professor of urologic surgery, specializing in minimally invasive robotic urologic surgery at Duke. And the subject is prostate cancer.

Ferrandino: Prostate cancer, unfortunately, can be present for years without being diagnosed, and often times is only diagnosed at the time of a digital rectal exam during part of the routine physical or with blood test -- screening test -- with a prostate-specific antigen, also known as PSA.

The next step is to typically perform a biopsy of the prostate. Once the specimen has been obtained and results come back, you’ll discuss the findings of the pathology with your physician.

Announcer: Worst case scenario, you have prostate cancer. What are the next steps?

Ferrendino: Well, if it’s found to be clinically localized prostate cancer, the main forms of treatment currently are active surveillance, surgical options, robotic surgery -- which we perform here at Duke -- as well as open surgery, and radiation therapy are the mainstays currently.