September marks Urology Awareness Month.
The Urology Foundation uses this opportunity to bring the community together to raise awareness of urology diseases.
Urology diseases refer to conditions affecting the bladder, kidney, or prostate and cover lots of conditions including male reproductive cancers, incontinence, urinary tract infections, erectile dysfunction and kidney stones.
Plenty of urological diseases are simple to treat with the right medical help, for example, urinary tract infections (or UTIs) can usually be treated with a short course of antibiotics.
However, as with many conditions, UTIs can cause complications if they spread to the kidneys, or in some rare cases, can cause sepsis if left for too long.
These are dangerous, usually require hospitalisation and can be very painful. For older patients or those with weakened immune system, they can also cause disorientation and delirium.
In adults, symptoms include pain when passing urine, needing to use the toilet more often than usual, needing to use the toilet more suddenly than usual, cloudy urine, blood in your urine, lower stomach or back pain, a high temperature or feeling shivery, and a very low temperature. Visit your GP if you experience these symptoms.
There are some urological conditions that can have more serious implications, such as bladder cancer and kidney cancer, affecting both men and women, and prostate cancer, testicular cancer and penile cancer, which are specific to men.
Blood in your urine without pain is one of the first symptoms of many urological cancers, so if you notice this, visit your GP. Other signs could be difficulty passing urine, or changes in sexual function. In cases of penile or testicular cancer, growths or sores on the skin may also occur.
Statistically, men across the UK are less likely to get in contact with their GP to resolve health issues they notice, but it is vital that possible urological cancers are detected quickly.
Cancer Research UK state that those who are diagnosed with prostate cancer at stage one or stage two are almost 100 per cent likely to survive for five years or more after diagnosis, and nearly all men survive testicular cancer if it is diagnosed early enough.
For penile cancer, early diagnosis is even more crucial, as catching cancer before it has spread to nearby lymph nodes significantly increases the chance of surviving for five years or more after diagnosis. In cases where penile cancer has spread to other parts of the body, unfortunately there were no cases of survival of five years or more.
Though it is crucial to see your GP if you experience any symptoms, I also recognise that in order to improve cancer outcomes we must build an NHS fit for the future. This includes providing it with the staff, technology, resources, and reform it needs to improve cancer pathways and ensure all patients get the support they need.
The immediate priority must be tackling waiting lists and getting patients treated faster, by increasing elective activity and utilising spare capacity in the independent sector.
Longer term, however, reform and modernisation will also needed shift the focus to prevention and early diagnosis.
If you want to find out more about Urology Awareness Month, or urological diseases generally, you can visit www.theurologyfoundation.org.
