Importance of Awareness and Early Detection
Early detection saves lives.
Being part of the community is vital to the UCARE specialist nurse team. We are passionate about raising awareness of not just urological cancer but cancer in general. You frequently hear stories about people regretting that they did not know the symptoms of cancer or wishing they had been diagnosed earlier. Ultimately we aim to increase survival rates through earlier detection.
We educate local communities and encourage them to become more aware of their bodies and what is 'normal' for them.
We hope that by talking about urological cancer openly and being accessible to the public that we will be able to diminish some of the taboos that prevent people from accessing their GP services.
Urological cancer is often something difficult for people to talk about in part because of limited knowledge and in part because of embarrassment. Raising awareness and talking about symptoms hopefully will help to break down barriers and allow earlier detection and earlier reassurance.
The earlier that cancer is detected the better the outcomes.
Statistics
There are just over 350,000 cases of cancer diagnosed each year in the UK, with around 70, 000 of these cases being attributable to urological cancer (prostate 46,690, kidney cancer 12,523, Bladder cancer 10,063 and testicular 2418, penile 632).
