Do women have prostate glands?

The male prostate is a reproductive organ. We often hear about prostatitis and prostatic hyperplasia, which are common male diseases among men. So do women not have male prostates? Can women get prostatitis? Let's take a look together below!

Do women have male prostates?

The male prostate is the largest actual human organ among the male reproductive glands. It is composed of male prostate tissue and muscle tissue. Women generally do not have male prostates, just like men do not have uteruses, so women will not get prostatitis.

The male prostate is an accessory gland of the male reproductive system. It is not a real gonadal duct. It is located between the bladder and the urogenital diaphragm, surrounding the root of the urethral opening. Its shape and size are like a slightly flat chestnut. It is spacious above and thin and pointed below. The back of the body is relatively flat, close to the duodenum, and can be palpated through rectal digital examination. The vertical diameter is 3cm, the thick diameter is 4cm, the front, back, left and right diameters are 2cm, and the weight is approximately 20g. Its size and function depend largely on male hormones. The prostate gland of male children is not large and grows and develops rapidly during sexual maturity. In the elderly, the glandular tissue gradually declines, and the connective tissue in the gland proliferates, causing prostate hyperplasia, which compresses the urethral opening and causes difficulty in urination.

Female prostate

In fact, women can also be said to have male prostates, but the female prostate is somewhat different from the male prostate. The female prostate refers to the glandular ducts around the female urethra that are similar to the male prostate in structure. Most of these glands are concentrated in the upper back of the urethral opening. About 92% of women have this type of tissue, of which about 25% may be true prostate glands. Its function is to produce mucus secretions that can increase women's sexual desire. The pleasure caused by the female prostate when secreting this fluid is the same as the pleasure caused by stimulating the male prostate.

Since the female prostate-like tissue is the same or similar to the male prostate, it can naturally cause infection, hyperplasia, obstruction and urethral stenosis. The so-called female prostate disease in clinical medicine refers to the female bladder neck obstruction caused by the hyperplasia of male prostate tissue or male prostate-like tissue, which is similar to the symptoms of male prostate hyperplasia. Therefore, it is also called female "prostate" infarction, which is common in middle-aged and elderly people, especially middle-aged women.

If inflammation or nodular neoplasia occurs, causing bladder neck stenosis or even obstruction, it will cause a series of symptoms dominated by urinary discomfort. In clinical medicine, it is called "female prostatic obstruction syndrome" or "prostatic hyperplasia in women" or "female prostatic residual hyperplasia".

The so-called female prostate is actually the paraurethral gland. Although if it is inflamed, it has similar symptoms to male prostatitis, but it is not a true male prostate. Therefore, we usually say that women do not have male prostate and will not develop prostatitis.