Prostate Cancer has a growing incidence that would get worse unless men begin to take keen interest in the proper management of their health, by undergoing regular checks, and particularly when they attain the age of 40.
Elochukwu Adibo, a biomedical research expert and laboratory director of El-Lab Limited, made this submission at a medial outreach held in collaboration with the Lagos State Maternal and Child Centre, Amuwo Odofin, to screen men for prostate disease.
Despite the saturation publicity given to the programme, the attendance was not encouraging.
“The response we have gotten is not as expected. Men always exhibit this macho feeling even when they are very ill. At other times, many men erroneously believe that there is nothing wrong with them – as long as they don’t have a fever or something of the sort that they can readily feel,” Elochukwu said.
He spoke further:
“I can assure you that there are so many men around this environment (referring to Festac, Amuwo Odofin, Maza Maza, Ojo, Satellite Town) who are experiencing urinary symptoms that may be indicative of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BHP) or prostate cancer but they will not even tell the wife they live with, not to talk of going to see a doctor except it becomes so bad. For so many, their wives prevail on them for days and weeks to go to hospital. And sometimes they practically force them, by continuously pestering and pushing them.
“We know that is common among men; that is why we have taken it as our duty or responsibility to do advocacy on prostate cancer because it is wrong to assume that our effort would not yield positive results.
But we are also happy when we see on social media that the number of people who have read the message we put out are in the thousands up to 80000 and more.
This is very encouraging and makes us happy. Sometimes we distribute 10,000 fliers.
Every day at the Maternal and Child Centre, Amuwo Odofin about 120 women come for antenatal care and so they take our fliers and read our roll-up banner displays in the reception and various points in the facility.
We also send out about 50,000 messages from our database. With all these, we are really happy that people are seeing our messages, urging them to go for prostate cancer screening.
Yet some of them do not come, perhaps it is not convenient to come to an open forum like this one. You see, many men are still secretive about health issues.”
On why men tend to hide their sickness, Elochukwu adduced shame or pride as the two major reasons. According to him, it is better to do a screening and discover a problem, because early detection leads to cure.
“When cancer comes, it is localized within the organ. But if it progresses without detection, adjoining tissues and organs will be affected. And this will lead to a more complicated treatment plan that would involve surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, because cells would leave the site of origin and affect other organs. In such a situation you would be battling with cancer at the site or origin and in the other affected organs. The thing about prostate cancer is that it likes to spread to the bones. This could be avoided through early detection. Early detection is not expensive as opposed to managing the case when detected late.”
He explained further:
“The thing about prostate cancer is that it remains localized at the site of origin for a long time and not be problem. That is why it is important that men go for screening early. It is always important to go to the hospital to have a check and allow the doctor to send you for diagnostic investigations at a good laboratory. That way, you are wiser in every way. So men should come out and undergo screening. Unfortunately, men don’t treat their health as a priority.
“We know that men take care of their cars and take particular interest in renewing their DSTv subscription to avoid missing European matches. But honestly, men do not treat their health as a priority.
As I said earlier, men show this macho attitude even when they are sick. That is why I think your observation is germane and extremely important to call men not to wait until they are almost dead from illness before they will seek and get medical attention. I must commend the few men who undergo regular medical health check.
For instance, we have periodic health check in our facility. Every six months we send reminders.
Men should make a priority to go for check once every year. The money they spend on social activities and entertainment, polishing themselves and doing other things that are not as important as their health, should be part of it should be invested in their health, to get reassured that all is well.
Men should increase their consciousness of preventive health check. Prevention is always better than cure.
Source: ENYERIBE EJIOGU