Lunch meeting

Cancer remains one of the biggest takers of life; despite the enormous progress that has been made in developing treatments for the disease. 

• Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men.
• Over 47,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year – that's 129 men every day.
• Every 45 minutes one man dies from prostate cancer – that's more than 11,000 men every year.
• 1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime.
• Over 330,000 men are living with and after prostate cancer.

Before we all get too gloomy about this its worthwhile listening to what Steve has to say

Steve belongs to the Beds Prostate Cancer Support Group which is a registered charity.  The group was formed 3 years ago partly to create awareness about prostate cancer and partly to raise money for the Primrose Unit at Bedford Hospital.  

In January last year they donated £9,000 to a  Fusion software project.  The software works with template biopsy equipment and a multi-parametric MRI scan to provide an accuracy of 92% in the detection of prostate cancer.  It does this by providing a 3D image of the prostate in colour and can even show up cancers at the back of the prostate, previously unsighted by other methods.  They need to raise £35,000 to purchase the software and to date the fund stands at £14,000.  

They also have a web site www.bpcsg.org.uk .which you can look at for further information plus I have attached a write up which they issue to people who would like more information.

None of us know when or if we, or our family, will experience these problems, so please come along and provide support for this very worthy cause. I'm sure it will be interesting and for many of us men it should also be a little re-assuring.