Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. This year, over 3,000 men will lose their battle with prostate cancer – that’s 10 fathers, brothers, sons, friends and workmates today alone.
September is International Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, a month dedicated to raising awareness of the disease and raise much-needed funds to assist in the fight against a cancer that will see thousands of men diagnosed this year.
Prostate cancer is an abnormal growth of prostate cells which form a lump (tumour) in the prostate. In time, it spreads to other organs, and can be life threatening.
Prostate cancer rates in Australia are among the highest in the world
– More than 25,400 men were diagnosed in 2023
– It claimed more than 3,740 lives in that same year
– Approximately 1 in 5 Australian men will develop prostate cancer during their lifetime
– Research has shown testing can reduce the death rate from prostate cancer from 20 to 44%
– Prostate cancer can be cured, especially when the cancer is still confined to the prostate gland
– But, if it’s diagnosed late it can be uncurable
There is an organisation working their way throughout regional Queensland and NSW educating men in a bid to bring the rate of the cancer down.
Brian and Jill Costello established ManUp! in 2010 after Brian was diagnosed with prostate cancer and they had difficulty finding relevant information and support.
“I had breast cancer first and I had a breast cancer nurse and all of the lovely help, but when Brian was diagnosed with prostate cancer four years later there was nothing like the support I had available for him.
“The level of awareness for prostate cancer wasn’t there and the support was non-existent. You found out you had a diagnosis, you went to a neurologist and got treatment and then you were pretty much on your own.
“My husband and I were both savvy and well educated and we could afford the treatment and any follow up needed but we couldn’t easily find the help to start with. When you’re in the waiting rooms you meet men from all different walks of life, men from small country towns up north who are isolated. Brian said at the time if the well-educated like us were struggling to get help in the city, what were the guys in the bush doing?”
Originally Jill and Brian decided to raise money for prostate cancer nurses – a feat greater than they realised.
It took them nearly three years to raise half the money needed for just one prostate cancer care nurse.
“So, we got thinking. Brian and I were both educators, we had both been teachers and I had a psychology degree, so Brian thought why don’t we do what we do well and teach? He thought if we could impart the knowledge to men so they know what to do instead of capturing them late with advanced prostate cancer, maybe we can capture them early, so they don’t need much support.
“That’s where it started. In 2014 we did a six-week tour, our first educational program with 37 talks.”
High on the success of their first educational tour, sadly Brian’s cancer returned.
“After that Brian unfortunately had a series of melanomas, he had five by the end and we suspect that one of those went to his lungs because he passed away from lung cancer in 2018,” said Jill.
That’s when Jill and Brian’s daughter Leah came on board.
ManUp! didn’t slow down, they just got busier spending about 10 months of the year on the road giving educational talks about prostate cancer.
“We head out to 71 regional and rural communities. Last year we did over 1000 information sessions and talked to about 50,000 people. We predominantly target mines and Councils so we can maximise our audience.
“We stay in the mining camps if we can, so if the workers don’t catch us at prestart, they can talk to us another time. I think once they realised the success that we’d had with men being diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer more men jumped on board with us.”
Leah said they always get a good response.
“We can only tell them so much, but we give them all the information we have and strongly encourage them to get a PSA blood test. It’s a bit like leading a horse to water, you can’t always make them drink.
“Based on roughly how many men we see through the year and how many we hear from after we’ve been, we get a 1 to 2% hit rate of men going and getting tested and diagnosed in the early stages. It isn’t very high, but we always say at the end of the day if we can save one man’s life and send him home to his family then we’ve done our job.”
WHAT IS A PSA BLOOD TEST?
The PSA blood test for Prostate Cancer is a test that measures the amount of Prostate Specific Antigen in your blood. Pick a time of the year to have your blood test so you don’t forget, maybe your birthday or the End of Financial Year. You should start testing from the age of 40 years. Each test you get a score which you can track with your doctor each year and if it suddenly changes or is abnormal in any way, that’s when you need to see a specialist.
An initiative called ManUp! Mondays has been taken up at a few mine sites too. Every Monday instead of wearing high vis yellow or orange, workers wear high vis blue.
“It starts a conversation,” said Jill.
“Instead of talking about it once a year, it’s a weekly conversation.”
The ManUp! initiative at Glencore’s Hail Creek Mine won the 2023 Queensland Mining Industry and Safety Conference Health Award.
Jill and Leah have a team of health professionals who keep their program up to date that they speak to at each mine site.
Leah said all they want men to do is easy, just get a blood test.
“It’s simple. Just look after yourself and check in with your mates. There is someone in your family who loves you, your mates want you to stick around, and it is a really treatable disease in the early stages.
“If there was a blood test for mammograms, I would just go do it!
“Men are so fastidious about their car service. They take it on time every time and yet when it comes to looking around their own health, which is essentially a body service, they don’t do it. You just have to look at it like a car service!”
| More details on ManUp! Australia: https://manupaustralia.org.au/ |
INFO AT YOUR FINGERTIPS IN QUEENSLAND
If you live or work in Queensland and you need to find Prostate Cancer services, or a GP or assistance, ManUp! has an app to help you find everything you need.
If you are diagnosed somewhere in regional Queensland, you often have to go away from home for treatment so you can use this app to help you find where to go.
The app is free to download on both Android and Apple devices.
