Prostate cancer under the spotlight
Dr Marek Borkowski, a urologist at Life Roseacres Hospital, urges men to screen for prostate cancer.
Men’s Health Month is just around the corner and it offers a reminder to men across the country to take a serious look at their overall health.
Prostate cancer is just one health issue faced by men, but with regular screening, it can be detected and diagnosed early.
One of the problems with prostate cancer is that in the early stages of the disease there may be no symptoms at all – which is why regular and comprehensive screening is vital.
Screening is done with both a Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test and a digital rectal exam (DRE).
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Dr Marek Borkowski, a urologist at Life Roseacres Hospital, firmly believes that you cannot make a clear diagnosis without both tests being done.
“A patient can have a normal PSA result and still have prostate cancer,” said Borkowski, when he sat down with the GCN between brachytherapy (radioactive prostatic implant) operations at the hospital recently.
Brachytherapy is a procedure that involves placing radioactive material inside your body.
Brachytherapy is one type of radiation therapy that’s used to treat cancer and is sometimes called internal radiation.
“It has become a very effective tool in the curing of prostate cancer, which is a malignancy of one of the major male sex glands,” said Borkowski.
Borkowski could not stress enough how important screening for men who are older than 45 is.
“Women visit the gynaecologist each year for a check-up,” he said.
“Yet men are not often willing to visit the urologist and screen for prostate cancer as it involves a rectal exam. How is this different from a visit to the gynaecologist?”
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He further stated that early detection is vital when treating prostate cancer.
“Once symptoms are present, the cancer is often in the late stages and is hard to treat or untreatable,” he said.
For Men’s Health Month he plans to have a day where he offers free testing to a certain number of patients who do not have medical aid, but the date is yet to be announced.
In addition to prostate cancer, Borkowski also has an extreme interest in stones treatment, bladder cancer, incontinence treatment and the treatment of sexual dysfunction.
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