Institut Bordet - Retour à la page d'accueil
en
I want to donate to research
  • press
  • Movember 2024 : A campaign dedicated to men’s health

Movember 2024 : A campaign dedicated to men’s health

Press release (31/10/2024)

In November, “Bordet is pulling out all the stops”. In launching this campaign, the H.U.B care teams are seeking to increase awareness and encourage discussion of male cancers. 

MovemberWith the fear of losing their masculinity and a sense of shame or embarrassment in talking about it, men rarely dare open up about their physical or mental health. Yet they are also at risk of being affected by cancer at some point in their lives.  Removing taboos and opening up about the disease are nonetheless essential when you consider that the earlier a cancer is detected the greater the chances of remission. At the Jules Bordet Institute, which is a part of the Brussels University Hospital (H.U.B), each patient receives global and personalised care adapted to their pathology, from detection through to treatment and post-cancer monitoring. The expertise of the multidisciplinary teams combined with the state-of-the-art technology provide the best guarantees of maintaining the patient’s quality of life.   

Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men with more than 12500 new cases a year in Belgium. The principal predisposing factor is age but also family history and ethnic origin, over which there is also no control, are additional factors. There is also no recommended preventive measure although a healthy and balanced diet appear to have a protective effect. Among men at no particular risk, adapted detection is proposed from the age of 50, involving above all a blood test to measure PSA levels (a protein specific to the prostate gland) as well as a rectal examination. Depending on the level recorded and the PSA rate of change between two readings and/or the prostate volume, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enables the urologist to decide for a possible biopsy in the case of an anomaly. 

At the H.U.B a number of state-of-the-art technologies permit very precise care and treatment:

  • A targeted transperineal biopsy (via the perineum)involves taking samples of several prostate fragments with a needle and assisted by a 3D ultrasound and MRI. The H.U.B is one of the few hospitals to use this technique under a local anaesthetic.

  • PET/MRI is a hybrid imaging technique that combines positron emission tomography (PET) and MRI for an ultimately precise tomography.  

  • The PSMA PET scan is a metabolic imaging that makes it possible to visualise the lesions caused by the prostate cancer more precisely than is possible using conventional imaging.  

  • High Intensity Focalised Ultrasound (HIFU-Focal-One®) provides robotic ablation targeted at small non-aggressive prostate tumours that enables the greater part of the gland to be preserved. The H.U.B is the only centre in Belgian with a device of this kind.

  • The MRI-Linac is a machine used in radiotherapy that delivers during a very short period a curative treatment for certain prostate cancers with a significant reduction in toxicity. Very few Belgian centres have this technology.  

Testicular cancer
Cancer of the testicles is rarer with fewer than 500 cases diagnosed every year in Belgium. It affects young men, however. A family history of the disease of a cryptorchidism (undescended testicle) are risk factors, as is regular cannabis use, it seems. Regular self-examination is an excellent means of detecting any anomaly. Prospects for a cure are also good in case of an early diagnosis with an estimated 99% survival rate for early diagnosis and multidisciplinary care at a reference centre.  

Bladder cancer
In Europe, bladder cancer is the 5th most common cancer among men. Smoking is the principal risk factor. Symptoms that demand attention are: presence of blood in the urine, abnormally frequent desire to urinate and painful bladder spasms. As soon as one of these warning signs appears it is vital to consult a doctor to ensure rapid treatment. These cancers are diagnosed at an early stage (non-muscle-invasive) in 70% of cases and can be treated with injections into the bladder (chemotherapy or treatment with BCGA or Bacillus Calmette-Gueren). In the case of forms that invade the entire bladder muscle, complete bladder removal or radiotherapy or chemotherapy will be needed.   

Penal cancer
Cancer of the penis is  an extremely rare but aggressive cancer with an average of 1200 new cases a year in Belgium. Surgery is virtually the only effective treatment. At the Jules Bordet Institute our experts use less radical surgical techniques combined with conventional anatomy reconstruction of a less invasive kind, such as biopsy of the sentinel node and robotic inguinal cleanings, which is unique in Belgium. 

Kidney cancer
Kidney cancer affects twice as many men as women. Sometimes, as for bladder cancer, symptoms can be blood in the urine but also kidney pain or the presence of  a palpable mass. These symptoms are rare, however, and the cancer is often discovered during a radiological examination prescribed for another reason. In many cases this permits a treatment that conserves the kidney to a greater degree.