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- A man who went to a chiropractor with hip pain was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.
- The man, 62, had a "deep and aching" pain in the front of his left groin, and into his thigh and knee.
- Scans found that he had prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, liver, and lungs.
A man went to a chiropractor with hip pain after a marathon and was later diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, according to a report.
The unnamed man, 62, experienced a "deep and aching pain" in the front of his left groin, which went down into his thigh and knee, for seven days after running a marathon, chiropractors wrote in a case report published on Saturday in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science.
According to the report, he had tried anti-inflammatory drugs, physiotherapy, and acupuncture, but the pain got worse and affected his work on construction sites, as well as his running.
To find out the cause of the pain, the man had imaging of the hip, including an MRI scan, which suggested he had a cancer that had spread to his pelvis, the report authors, who work in Hong Kong, said.
Prostate cancer can cause pain in the back and hips that doesn't get better
The chiropractor consulted an oncologist who arranged for a PET scan of the man's whole body, which suggested a cancer in the prostate had spread to his bones, liver, and lungs. Further tests confirmed that he had the most common type of prostate cancer, called an adenocarcinoma.
The American Cancer Society estimates that around 288,300 people will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and about 34,700 people will die from the condition in 2023. Symptoms of the disease include: pain in the back, hips, or pelvis that doesn't get better, pain or burning when peeing, painful ejaculation, and blood in the urine or semen.
The CDC recommends that people with any of these symptoms — which can be caused by other medical conditions too — should see a doctor "right away."
The mainstay of treatment for prostate cancer in the US is surgery and radiotherapy. Treatments like chemotherapy and hormone therapy are still being researched, according to the CDC.
In this case, doctors treated the man with a combination of treatments, including chemotherapy and drugs that help to protect the bone health. He continued to receive "gentle" therapy from the chiropractor, which they said improved his quality of life and helped the hip pain, but isn't a proven treatment.
According to the report, the man died from a lung infection seven months after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The report authors said that other chiropractors who suspect a patient has prostate cancer should refer them to the "appropriate healthcare professionals for further investigation or treatment, due to the impact on patients if left undiagnosed or untreated."
CDC data suggests that about 96% of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer are alive five years later.