The Barbados Advocate reported on Friday that the country was losing 80 to 90 of its men annually to the disease, and while these figures have not been officially verified and documented, Urologist Dr Dave Padmore said that he had seen enough prostate cancer victims to know that in Barbados, this disease was posing a serious problem.
”In this part of the world, not only is prostate cancer the number one solid organ cancer in men, but it is the number one cancer killer in men as opposed to many other countries in the world where it usually ranks at number two or three," Padmore said while delivering a lecture organized by the Barbados Drug Service.
The urologist said that 40 percent of the patients coming to his office visit because of prostate cancer.
He explained that racial make up was an important factor attributed to the high number of prostate cancer cases in Barbados and the Caribbean, and added that statistics provided showed that in United States, a black man was almost twice is likely to be afflicted with and die of prostate cancer as compared to a white man.
He also noted that the highest incidences of the cancer were found to come from populations that were high in persons of African descent.
Padmore, who served as President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) said that it was his personal belief that aggressive screening, diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer had the ability to make a big difference in Barbados and the countries of the West Indies.
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