I HAVE arranged a PSA blood testing event for Early Detection Prostrate Cancer on Wednesday, June 1, at the Winsford Conservative Club, Ways Green, Winsford, from 7pm-10pm and would like to encourage men aged 40 and above to come and get tested.

We just ask for £10 to help with costs and each man tested will also be asked to provide a urine sample for our programme in training the Medical Detection Dogs to “Sniffout”

prostate cancer (presently proving 92 per cent successful).

There has been much said recently regarding the lack of testing (only 8 per cent of eligible men are tested for PC here in the UK). Should more not be done, mortality will double over the next five to 10 years from this most common cancer in men.

The Health Department has discussed second line markers to be used, but the conclusion was that nothing yet is as good or cheap enough for universal use and PSA testing remains the only useful front line tool.

Although screening across Europe, has in many cases shown to have reduced mortality by between 32 per cent and in some cases as high as 42 per cent, this Government still insists it is not sufficient to introduce screening in the UK as they say it would cause more harm than benefit.

We now have in place, in all urological departments, a multidisciplinary team of leading clinicians to oversee every instance of cancer being diagnosed in the prostate.

They have the means to know if the cancer will require treatment or be placed on active surveillance and regularly monitored. In addition they can call on leading clinicians all over the country and beyond if necessary.

The PSA testing, such that we do, is processed by The Doctors Laboratory and all results of 1.4 or above will be given a “Free-to-Total”

test, to provide evidence in many instances if a cancer is present.

Gary Steel MBE Chairman, Leighton Hospital PCSG