ABSTRACT

THE PROSTATE The average urologist spends about 30% of his or her time dealing with problems related to the prostate. Surprisingly, for a structure that attracts so much of our attention, we know very little about why the prostate is there and what it does. It is one of four accessory sex glands or pairs of glands; the other three are the seminal vesicles, Cowper’s glands and the glands of Littre. If we know little about the prostate, we know even less about the others. The seminal vesicles, which are secretory glands, and not storage organs for semen as their name implies, contribute substantially to the volume of seminal fluid and produce one or two substances that we know about, notably fructose and glyceryl phosphocholine. However, the other two structures are something of a mystery.