Meet Loren Ost M.D, a Urologist practicing in Sulphur Springs at CHRISTUS Mother Frances Hospital’s Healthplex, 113 Airport Road. Dr. Ost shares his clinic with Nurse Practitioner Leah Irving, a career nurse who has assisted his practice for the eight years since Dr. Ost established his practice in Sulphur Springs. Originally from Chicago, trained in Cincinnati and with a 10-year practice in his home state of Illinois, Dr. Ost came to Texas in 2011 to serve men’s health needs in NE Texas. Today, he sees patients from within a region stretching from Greenville to Texarkana, and from Paris to Tyler. He gives credit to CHRISTUS Health for continuing to provide Hopkins County and surrounding counties with invaluable professional health care close to home. New physicians are coming onto the CHRISTUS team,recently in Gastroenterology, Orthopedics and Pain Management.
Dr. Ost Urology Clinic provides care for men’s health needs. Primarily, his message during the KSST Good Morning Show interview was about early detection of prostate cancer. Despite a government panel which in recent years spoke of early detection procedures as unnecessary, Dr. Ost continues to remind men of the danger in waiting to have prostate screening. “Our wives, daughters and mothers wisely submit to mammograms through their lives as a step in early detection and prevention of breast cancer. Men should take the probability of prostate cancer just as seriously. Cancer of the prostate is silent and painless until advanced stages, and by then it’s too late. There is no cure for prostate cancer. This is why we rely on early detection and prevention”.
Dr. Ost explained further that the screening is a simple two-step process; a blood test followed by a physical exam. The blood test will reveal the PSA count, and the physical exam will reveal possible abnormalities in tissue. Beyond that, there is biopsy which tests tissues. Biopsies are done in the Urology clinic and require no sedation or hospital stay. If cancer is detected from the biopsy, it maybe one of several varieties which can be managed. It could be a slow-growing type where no immediate action is required, or at the other end of the spectrum, it might be an aggressive fast-growing cancer which requires fast action”. Dr. Ost encourages men age 45 to 50 should begin having screenings as part of their personal health regime. And for men whose grandfather, father or brother has had prostate cancer, his advice is to begin annual screenings earlier than that. If prostate cancer is detected, treatments exist. Dr. Ost and the CHRISTUS team of physicians have access to the latest in technology. “
