Diagnosis
In addition to anamnesis and physical examination, the sampling (biopsy) of the suspected skin change plays an important role in the diagnosis of penis cancer. This is examined histologically for degenerated cells. If the suspected diagnosis of penis cancer is confirmed on the basis of the histology, further diagnostics must be carried out to classify the disease into a certain tumor stage (staging), since the therapy of the disease is carried out depending on the stage.
Of interest here is the tumor size, which can be checked by imaging techniques such as MRI. In this context, it is often also possible to see whether distant metastases are already present. Examination methods such as ultrasound or computer tomography are also used.
Therapy
In order to cure penis cancer completely, it is necessary to remove all tumor cells completely. However, this is usually only possible in such low stages of penis cancer where the tumor is confined to the penis. In situations with distant metastases, treatment must be different from local findings.
If there is no metastasis, the intended therapy of choice is the complete surgical removal of the tumor. In this procedure, the skin tumor is resected with a safety margin to ensure that no cancer cells remain in the body. If this is successful and no tumor cells are visible on the edge of the removed tissue in the histological examination, this is called R0 resection, which is associated with a very good prognosis of the disease.
In early stages of the disease, the tumor is often easy to operate, since it usually only affects the glans or foreskin, which are relatively easy to resect, and therefore there are usually no serious limitations to the quality of life.If the cancer of the penis is so far advanced that a removal of the suspected skin change is not expected to eliminate all cancer cells completely, a complete amputation of the penis may be necessary to cure the cancer of the penis. If there are also metastases in other organs, surgery alone is no longer effective. Instead, an attempt is made to destroy the tumor cells distributed in the body using chemotherapy.
Surgery or chemotherapy is followed by close monitoring to detect and treat a possible recurrence of penile cancer at an early stage. In summary, penis cancer, which almost always occurs as a skin tumor on the penis, has an excellent prognosis in early stages of the disease. Therefore, early detection of cancer plays an important role.
