Major screening initiative starts up in Lagos, Nigeria

According to the Vanguard online, the Lagos State Government this week kicked off the second phase of a free prostate cancer awareness and screening program. This initiative is based on the premise that as many as 14 million Nigerian men may be afflicted with prostate cancer, the most common cause of cancer death in Nigerian men aged 50 and above.

During a pilot phase of the study, a total of 408 men were screened, of whom 272 were normal, while 100 were requested to repeat the test after 6 months and 36 were referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital for review. Following the review, 16 men were asked to undergo prostate biopsy and 8 of them have had the biopsy carried out. Three of these 8 were determined to have cancer of the prostate. Thus, in the pilot phase, at least 3/408 men screened or 7 men in 1,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer.