Man Van rolling into city to give PSA tests
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on August 23, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com One in six Alberta men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes and on Friday, some will get a chance to see if they may have issues with the gland when the Man Van visits the London Drugs parking lot.Prostate cancer is one of the most common kinds of cancer and when it’s detected early as many as 95 per cent of cases are treatable.
“It’s a really treatable disease when caught early,” says Ken Rabb, senior community partnerships advisor with the Prostate Cancer Centre at Rockyview Hospital in Calgary.
While only a biopsy can only determine if cancer actually exists in the prostate, a prostate-specific antigen test, commonly known as a PSA test, will determine if PSA levels are higher than normal.
That test is a simple blood test which requires a phlebotomist taking half a teaspoon of blood out of a man’s vein.
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Rabb said results will be sent back to men within 72 hours of the test.
Rabb says there could be a number of reasons why PSA levels are elevated, which are for a physician to figure out. If a PSA test comes back with higher levels, another test will be ordered from a differed lab. If those results are also higher, then the recommendation would be probably a referral to visit a doctor, says Rabb.
“Then they’ll probably do the digital rectal exam and then from there they might choose to do a biopsy. But one step at a time. The first thing we’re doing is the first PSA test and not really worrying about anything else. For most people, it’s just going to come back within a range. If it’s normal we’re going to say get checked the following year and track that throughout your lifetime,” says Rabb.
The Man Van originally began operating in 2009 in the Calgary area and expanded its services to other areas in southern Alberta in 2012.
It will be at London Drugs – located adjacent to Save-On Foods in Centre Village Mall from noon until 4 p.m. It will be at Cornfest in Taber on Saturday.
Rabb says the Prostate Cancer Centre recommends that men start undergoing baseline PSA testing at the age of 40. By the time a guy hits 50, he should be having a PSA test done annually, says Rabb.
Friday’s event will also offer other health measurements including waist circumference, blood glucose and blood pressure, all of which the centre says provides crucial insights into a man’s overall wellbeing. Those measurements can address concerns such as obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. There is no charge for the test.
Rabb expects roughly 75 to 100 men will be tested at the van on Friday.
“We always get a good turnout,” in Lethbridge, Rabb says.
“Men understand the importance.”
While highly treatable when caught early, prostate cancer that spreads into other parts of the body can be more tricky to deal with, he says.
“This disease doesn’t really have any symptoms if any. You can have prostate cancer and not know about it so things like PSA test and that digital rectal exam where they actually feel the prostate – they measure two different things, one’s measuring the protein the blood, the other’s actually feeling the prostate – these help doctors figure out if there’s a problem because they’re probably going to notice before you.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, possible symptoms of prostate cancer can include trouble urinating, blood in the urine or semen, decreased urine stream force, bone pain, erectile dysfunction and unexplained weight loss.
“We’re out there because guys are notoriously bad for not looking after themselves,” says Rabb.
The numbers of men who will get prostate cancer is “significant. The risk increases with age,” says Rabb.
The prostate grows for a man’s entire life and the risk of having cancer in the gland increases, too, he said.
“An elevated PSA is not going to say that you have prostate cancer. The only way to do that is to get a biopsy. It’s going to say that there’s an elevated level of this protein, the PSA, in your blood and it can be a number of things. It doesn’t have to mean prostate cancer but you probably want to go figure out why,” says Rabb. Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter 4
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