Prostate exams aren’t fun. Anyone who’s ever had one or who knows what one entails will tell you that with a grim tilt of the head and a refusal to meet your eyes. In a time when we’ve done such miraculous things with scanning technology, it’s almost degrading to go to such invasive and uncomfortable lengths to test for such a common cancer. It’s the most common cancer for men in the UK alone and it necessitate the insertion of a lubricated finger into an area which is highly personal and not for the poking and prodding of doctors!
Uncomfortable though it may be, it saves lives. When it comes to it, we’d all choose some discomfort over contracting a deadly condition and never even realising that we had it. Prostate cancer certainly is deadly too, just like all cancer is deadly. Your best chance of survival when it comes to cancer is to catch it early as the treatments available are much more effective on younger cancers. The best way to catch a cancer early is to have regular screenings and that of course brings us back to this least pleasant of tests.
Good news for men comes in the form of a new form of testing developed by Scottish researchers. This takes the form of a genetic test which is much more accurate than the standard probing and nowhere near as invasive. It works by recognising a halo of cells which form around a prostate tumour rather than the tumour itself. This I means that it doesn’t matter how small a tumour may be, it will always be detectable because of these halo marker cells.
It might be a little while until this testing is fully trialled and made available to the public. This means more unpleasant tests for men everywhere. Remember men, a couple of minutes of discomfort and some mild embarrassment is worth if it finds cancer and saves your life!
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