Free clinic helping men detect early prostate cancer

The Man Van rolled into Lethbridge today in the parking lot of London Drugs.

The clinic from the Prostate Cancer Centre in Calgary offers free blood testing to help detect early prostate cancer for men ranging in age from 40 to 80 years old.

Mike Budd, the host of the Man Van, and a cancer survivor himself, tells us what a trip to the Man Van will look like.

“The gentleman will answer a few questionnaires in the iPads, you know, about their general health. And then they’ll go inside the Man Van and speak with the technicians and answer some more questions. And then they will take their waist circumference, blood glucose and then a small vial of blood to do the PSA testing, which we take back to Calgary with us to the Rockyview Hospital. And then we respond back to them with their results for the PSA. And should they have elevated levels of PSA, then what we do is we have somebody to contact them and discuss a possible game plan for them.”

Chelsea Kwong, a patient care pharmacist with London Drugs, says this is an important partnership between each organization.

“In Canada, men’s health is often called like the silent crisis. So men don’t seek preventative care, they delay treatment, they don’t listen to health information as much, and they probably don’t have a healthcare provider. So London Drugs is trying to make that more accessible to our patients. PSA, or prostate specific antigen is a protein in the blood that can help with the early detection of prostate cancer. And the earlier that prostate cancer is detected, then the more likely it is to be treated and the better the treatment will be.”

According to stats from the Prostate Cancer Centre, the Man Van serves approximately 7,000 men per year.

The group also does clinics in different areas in Calgary.

For more information on the Man Van you can visit https://www.prostatecancercentre.ca/manvan/