Prostate cancer kills over 11,000 men in the UK each year and experts warn it is not possible to cure the disease when the cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body.
The prostate is usually the size and shape of a walnut and grows bigger as men get older.
It sits underneath the bladder and surrounds the urethra – the tube men urinate and ejaculate through.
Its main job is to help make semen – the fluid that carries sperm.
It sits close to nerves and blood vessels that govern bladder function and erection so it is a delicate area of the human body - and can be hard to treat.
Prostate cancer symptoms usually develop slowly - which means people are often not aware of the disease.
People usually only notice symptoms of the disease when the prostate is so enlarged it starts to affect how often men need to go to the toilet.
Prostate Cancer UK said there are seven main symptoms of prostate cancer.
They include:
-Seeing to urinate more often than usual, including at night, for example if men need to go again after two hours.
-Difficulty starting to urinate
-Straining to taking a long time to finish urinating
-The feeling you are not emptying your bladder fully
-Needing to rush to the toilet - and sometime leaking before you get there
-Dribbling urine after you finish going to the toilet
However, the charity said there are less common symptoms which include pain when urinating, pain when ejaculating, blood in urine or semen or problems getting or maintaining an erection.
The most common way to diagnose abnormalities with the prostate gland is through a Prostate Specific Antigen, or PSA test.
PSA is a protein produced by the prostate and released into the blood stream in very small quantities.
There is some evidence that being overweight and having a high BMI (body mass index) increases the risk of a high grade cancer or dying from prostate cancer.
Eating a healthy diet can lower the risk of many cancers. Risk factors of prostate cancer include taking anabolic steroids.
This comes after experts revealed proton beam therapy is an 'extremely encouraging' treatment for the disease.
Anyone with concerns about prostate cancer may contact Prostate Cancer UK's Specialist Nurses in confidence on 0800 074 8383 or online via the Live Chat instant messaging service: www.prostatecanceruk.org/.
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