Men urged to get tested for prostate cancer

Barbadian men need to come forward and be tested for prostate cancer. This was the plea made by president of the Barbados Cancer Society, Professor R David Rosin, as he spoke during Sunday’s Prostate Cancer Walk.

The walk was recently launched to encourage more men to get tested for the disease.

Professor Rosin said even though more Barbadians are coming forward to be tested, the numbers among men are still worryingly low, and needed to see a change.

“Men I think don’t like to show weakness, so they don’t come forward. That’s why we really [need] more education … cancer is not such a disaster, in fact in the rest of the world [prostate cancer] is the least worrying, because men can live with it. Unfortunately, in men of African descent it’s more aggressive, so they need to come forward and they need to be sensible. Forget the idea that it’s showing weakness … come forward,” he said.

While noting the results of a recent trial which involved 565 men over 40 that showed thousands of Barbadian men as young as 40 have a specific DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule gene that predisposes them to the development of prostate cancer, Rosin stressed it was vital for men to come out in their numbers and get tested as soon as possible in order for necessary treatment to take place.

“In Barbados, prostate cancer is the most common cancer that we have. We roughly have in the last census in 2018, 325 men with prostate cancer. When you consider that it’s only half the population being men, that is a very high percentage. I think Barbados is the third highest in the world for prostate cancer [so] it’s vital that we diagnose this as early as possible.

“As with any [other] cancer, if we diagnose it early, then of course it’s very treatable. The whole idea of today’s walk is to really bring everybody’s attention to come forward and be screened.” (SB)

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