June Is Men’s Health Awareness Month
National Men's Health Week, June 9 – 15(2008), was established in 1994, by the Senate, and House of Representatives, to show how simple, diagnostic, and screening tests can save lives. This has grown to a month long educational event. The month of June, gives health care providers, public policy makers, the media, and individuals an opportunity to encourage men and boys to seek regular medical advice and early treatment for disease and injury.
Prostate Cancer
Bladder Cancer
The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 68,810 new cases of bladder cancer, and 14,100 deaths from this disease in the United States during 2008. Sixteen thousand of these cases will be advanced at the time of diagnosis.
The ratio of men to women being diagnosed with this disease is 4 to 1.3
There are a number of risk factors that have been linked to bladder cancer; these include smoking or chewing tobacco, pollution/smog exposure, certain chemical exposures, industry exposure (textile manufacturers, firefighters, hairdressers, dry cleaners), race, age 60+, gender, previous treatments for other cancers (radiation therapy), chronic bladder inflammation, and a family history of bladder cancer.3
Symptoms include urgency to urinate, blood in urine, and pain in back or flank. Often pain may not be present.
Bladder cancer can sometimes be found early, improving the chances of successful treatment. A routine urinalysis is often done by physicians during an annual physical exam. This test may find blood in the urine, which can be a sign of bladder cancer. If further investigation is needed, physicians may use screening tests such as urine cytology or cystoscopy to detect the presence of bladder cancer. The urine cytology test examines urine to see if cancerous cells (or pre-cancerous cells) are present.
A cystoscopy procedure involves the use of a narrow tube with a lens and a light, which is placed into the bladder through the urethra. The cystosope allows the urologist to see the inside of the bladder and parts of the urinary tract. The physician may decide to do a biopsy, in which a small piece of tissue is removed to be examined further.3
The Vysis®' UroVysion™' test is an additional tool that combines the strength of urine cytology with DNA-based technology to clearly detect the presence of cancer up to 6 months sooner than other diagnostic methods UroVysion represents the first gene-based test available for both the diagnosis of bladder cancer in hematuria patients and the identification of bladder cancer recurrence.4
Additionally, the Vysis UroVysion test detects high-grade tumors that can be overlooked with traditional testing methods. Vysis UroVysion's specificity is approximately 95 percent among healthy and unhealthy subjects, which translates to fewer false-positive readings.
Once again — early detection can be a key to a positive prognosis.
For more information about prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and the tests available to diagnose and prevent this cancer, please speak with your physician and visit www.questdiagnostics.com
References
4 Vysis UroVysion package insert