Prostate cancer kills 11,000 men a year … fact!

If detected whilst still in the prostate, there is a good chance that it can be completely eliminated. (See the section below on treatment options.)

But if the cancer is left undetected and spreads outside the prostate then the outlook is significantly more complicated and ultimately carries the risk of becoming another statistic.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that early detection will, and does, save lives.

Early detection starts with a simple blood test, that’s it…

The Expert’s View – A message from Prof. Mark Pemberton, leading expert in prostate cancer treatment

“In prostate cancer, early disease detection is key. With this we can identify those with clinically significant disease who are going to benefit from treatment and overlook those with clinically insignificant disease who are unlikely to benefit from treatment.

Modern imaging is the mechanism to achieving those objectives, as it gives us the precious information of location which has hitherto been missing. This allows us to treat the cancer rather than the prostate resulting in much lower side effects.

In terms of treatment options, High Intensity Focussed Ultrasound (HIFU) offers us the option of non-invasive treatment. This combined with modern imaging means lower side effects from both the disease itself and the treatment. I think the outlook is very good for men with prostate cancer given the extraordinary developments happening at both ends of the disease spectrum.”

The Layman’s View (OK, mine!)

Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is an antigen only produced in the prostate and the PSA blood test measures the concentration of it in your blood. If the concentration increases it’s purely an early warning sign that something needs to be checked out, it doesn’t mean you’ve got cancer, but it does mean that you need a check up see why there has been a change.

If you are diagnosed with prostate cancer the outlook has never been better. There is no need for 11,000 people to die of this each year. But this is only preventable if you get it detected early. Got the message?

Up until now the only treatment options were varying versions of irradiation or prostate removal, both carrying significant side effects and lifestyle changes. The problem was that due to the way they tested for signs of the cancer, doctors only knew that you had prostate cancer, but not how much of the prostate was effected. So sometimes the entire prostate would be removed when only a small area was effected by the cancer.

Now with modern imaging you can identify very accurately which tissue is cancerous and the newest treatment option is amazing. It’s called High Intensity Focussed Ultrasound – if you imagine what would happen as a child when you would use a magnifying glass to focus the sun onto a single spot on a piece of paper and burn a hole in it. That’s it, they burn the effected tissue only. No need for surgery, the operation can be done as a day case and there are minimal of side effects.

So you have a choice… ignore all this and risk being one of the statistics or get a blood test… now.