The Barbados Cancer Society (BCS) has announced a major breakthrough in cancer diagnosis through two successful clinical trials capable of distinguishing false-positive results from genuine cases, in what officials are calling a first for the region.
“We are the premier, without doubt, cancer society, and the only one that has been able, I think, probably in the whole of the different countries around us…the only one that has run trials. We’ve run two; one on prostate cancer and one on colon cancer, and we are hoping to do another one this year,” the society’s president, Professor David Rosin, told Barbados TODAY in an interview.
“And we are also, I think, the only society which has medical personnel who, once people, if they have been screened, then have a positive test, we can talk them through exactly what should go on…because all the screening, some of them especially, have false positives.”
He continued: “Our trials were on DNA…blood tests, which we have been promoting, that if a PSA [prostate-specific antigen] for instance for breast or prostate cancer is positive, that you should then, not as a first thing, but then as a second thing, to make sure that it is actually a cancer, and not a false positive. It could be infection – prostatitis. We are doing the DNA test, which tells us whether it’s really a cancer or not, and then you can take it forward. I think, we are the only people who can give this service.”
Some 565 men participated in the trials that involved the PSA tests and the DNA tests.
“The interesting thing about it was that there were 20 men we knew,” said Prof Rosin.
“They had given us their history that they had prostate cancer or were having treatment at the time. But, much more interesting was that there were another 50 patients who had a normal PSA test; no signs, no symptoms, nothing on the radiology. And so, we know that these men, and we’re following them very closely, we know these men will probably get cancer in the future.”
He advised that where people present early, they would not need surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
“The same goes for the second trial we did which was for colon cancer. We had 610 people. And then we have to do more in the future. So that’s where we are going, and hope that people will take it to heart…and if men are shy about coming forward, maybe their partners or relatives can push them to come forward. There is no doubt that women come forward much more quickly for the breast screening, which is another very important screening that we do at the Cancer Society.”
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