Get your bits checked!
With National Cervical Cancer
Awareness Week having just
wrapped up and Movember just
beginning, health is on a lot of people's
minds — specifically, cervix
and prostate health.
With eye-catching awareness campaigns that incorporate everything from fairy godmothers to bristly moustaches, health care providers are reminding everybody to 'get your bits checked.'
This year's National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week, sponsored by the Federation of Medical Women in Canada, ran from October 23 to 29 and encouraged women across the country to get their annual Pap smears. But just because the week is over doesn't mean it's too late; cervical health isn't just a one-week-every-year thing. It has been estimated that 500 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in Ontario this year, and of those women, approximately 140 will die from the disease, but that doesn't have to be the case.
"Cervical cancer is almost entirely preventable," said Dr. Monique Bertrand, Gynaecologic Oncologist at the London Health Sciences Centre and spokesperson for The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. "Regular screening is an essential defense against cervical cancer and the best way to detect early cell changes on the cervix that might lead to cancer."
You can protect yourself against cervical cancer with regular screenings (which can be conducted at the Middlesex-London Health Unit at 50 King St., call 519-663-5446 for more information), following up on abnormal results and by getting vaccinated against the human papillomavirus. "In the past 30 years, cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates have declined by more than 60 per cent in all age groups due to widespread cervical screening with Pap tests," said Bertrand. "Despite this progress, many women in the south west (Ontario) region are still not being screened for cervical cancer regularly enough, or are not undergoing follow-up testing after an abnormal Pap test."
The South West Regional Cancer Program is one of 13 regional cancer programs created by Cancer Care Ontario in 2005 to ensure cancer care is delivered according to province-wide quality standards. The SWRCP put out a series of informative videos about cervical cancer, HPV and what to expect during a Pap test for National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week, which you can view at youtube.com/user/TheSWRCP.
Movember is a campaign that runs for the entire month of November where men, or 'Mo Bros,' grow a mustache to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer research. Since its conception in 1999 in Australia, Movember has raised $176 million and has had 1.1 million Mo Bros and Mo Sistas register to participate. In 2010, Canada alone had 119,000 registered participants and raised $22.3 million.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, one in seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. In 2011, an estimated 25,000 men will be diagnosed and 4,100 will die of prostate cancer.
Though prostate cancer is most prevalent in men over 60, factors such as family history and being of African descent can increase chances of developing prostate cancer at a younger age. Men rarely experience symptoms during the early stages of prostate cancer, but as the cancer develops, men can experience frequent and urgent need to urinate, a burning feeling when urinating, finding blood in urine or semen, difficulty starting or stopping urine flow, inability to urinate and pain when climaxing during sex.
There are two tests for prostate cancer, the first being a blood test called the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test, and the second is the digital rectal examination where a doctor feels the prostate gland.
For more information about prostate cancer, visit the Public Health Agency of Canada website at phac-aspc.gc.ca.
Don't let your bits fall to pieces — take good care of them and they'll take good care of you. Call your family doctor to get checked out.
For more information on the National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week, visit womenscollegehospital.ca. For more information about Movember, visit movember.com.
With eye-catching awareness campaigns that incorporate everything from fairy godmothers to bristly moustaches, health care providers are reminding everybody to 'get your bits checked.'
This year's National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week, sponsored by the Federation of Medical Women in Canada, ran from October 23 to 29 and encouraged women across the country to get their annual Pap smears. But just because the week is over doesn't mean it's too late; cervical health isn't just a one-week-every-year thing. It has been estimated that 500 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in Ontario this year, and of those women, approximately 140 will die from the disease, but that doesn't have to be the case.
"Cervical cancer is almost entirely preventable," said Dr. Monique Bertrand, Gynaecologic Oncologist at the London Health Sciences Centre and spokesperson for The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. "Regular screening is an essential defense against cervical cancer and the best way to detect early cell changes on the cervix that might lead to cancer."
You can protect yourself against cervical cancer with regular screenings (which can be conducted at the Middlesex-London Health Unit at 50 King St., call 519-663-5446 for more information), following up on abnormal results and by getting vaccinated against the human papillomavirus. "In the past 30 years, cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates have declined by more than 60 per cent in all age groups due to widespread cervical screening with Pap tests," said Bertrand. "Despite this progress, many women in the south west (Ontario) region are still not being screened for cervical cancer regularly enough, or are not undergoing follow-up testing after an abnormal Pap test."
The South West Regional Cancer Program is one of 13 regional cancer programs created by Cancer Care Ontario in 2005 to ensure cancer care is delivered according to province-wide quality standards. The SWRCP put out a series of informative videos about cervical cancer, HPV and what to expect during a Pap test for National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week, which you can view at youtube.com/user/TheSWRCP.
Movember is a campaign that runs for the entire month of November where men, or 'Mo Bros,' grow a mustache to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer research. Since its conception in 1999 in Australia, Movember has raised $176 million and has had 1.1 million Mo Bros and Mo Sistas register to participate. In 2010, Canada alone had 119,000 registered participants and raised $22.3 million.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, one in seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. In 2011, an estimated 25,000 men will be diagnosed and 4,100 will die of prostate cancer.
Though prostate cancer is most prevalent in men over 60, factors such as family history and being of African descent can increase chances of developing prostate cancer at a younger age. Men rarely experience symptoms during the early stages of prostate cancer, but as the cancer develops, men can experience frequent and urgent need to urinate, a burning feeling when urinating, finding blood in urine or semen, difficulty starting or stopping urine flow, inability to urinate and pain when climaxing during sex.
There are two tests for prostate cancer, the first being a blood test called the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test, and the second is the digital rectal examination where a doctor feels the prostate gland.
For more information about prostate cancer, visit the Public Health Agency of Canada website at phac-aspc.gc.ca.
Don't let your bits fall to pieces — take good care of them and they'll take good care of you. Call your family doctor to get checked out.
For more information on the National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week, visit womenscollegehospital.ca. For more information about Movember, visit movember.com.
