World Cancer Day 2015

Last week, we published a blog post about how we are helping to prevent and raise awareness of cervical cancer. In this blog post, we will explain the types of services that we provide to help prevent and treat other cancers, including skin, prostate and testicular cancer.

If you’re wondering why we’re talking so much about cancer, it’s because today is World Cancer Day, a global campaign in the fight against the disease.

Day in day out at our private health practice in Edinburgh, we provide advice on the symptoms and causes of various types of cancer and highlight the importance of screening and vaccination.

So in order to raise more awareness in the fight against cancer, we have decided to share some of that advice on our blog.

Skin cancer

Skin cancer, one of the most common cancers in the world, can develop from lesions or moles and can result from overexposure to the sun, including sunbeds.

About 12,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with melanoma (the most dangerous form of skin cancer) each year – and the number of cases in Scotland is continuing to rise at a “worrying rate”.

However most cases of skin cancer are easily treated and cured if detected in the early stages.

If you are worried about skin cancer, we have a team of GPs and specialists that can examine you and put your mind at ease. If there’s cause for concern, we can refer you to a dermatologist or do a punch biopsy, where we take a small sample of your skin and send it to our labs for testing.

Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer of men in the UK, with one in eight men diagnosed with the disease at one point in their lives. But it can be cured – if only men open up and talk about it early on.

If you have urinary symptoms or are worried about prostate problems, we can carry out a urine test to give us a quick indicator of things like blood, nitrates, leukocytes and proteins.

If there are no signs of bacteria but the symptoms persist (or if you have immediate family problems of prostate cancer) we can carry out a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test; a blood test that can detect the early signs of the disease.

If the PSA test detects any signs of prostate cancer, we will then get you fast-tracked for an appointment with a urologist or you can ask your regular GP to refer you.

Testicular cancer

Although relatively uncommon overall, testicular cancer is the most common type of cancer to affect men between the ages of 15 and 44.

The most important thing to remember is that testicular cancer can be easily curable if found in time. In fact, the overwhelming majority of men with the disease are now surviving for at least 10 years.

This is why it’s hugely important that you have regular check-ups, either by self-examination, or by popping into medical practices such as YourGP.

As well as carrying out regular self-examinations, it is also important to get a regular health check, and we recommend you have an annual ‘Well-Man Check’, a comprehensive package of tests for all key male health problems, including testicular and prostate cancer.

If you want to find out more about how we can help prevent and treat cancer, you can email us at reception@your.gp or call us on 0131 225 5656.

Remember, if you want to find out more, you can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – where you will also see our #SmearForSmear selfies that we have been posting to raise awareness of cervical cancer.

Photo courtesy of Erik Söderström under CC BY 2.0