Remember remember the month of Movember: Creating awareness for prostate cancer

Movember was started by a group of friends in Australia in 2003, as a way to create awareness for men’s health issues, focusing on prostate cancer.

Movember has matured since 2003, expanding to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands and Finland.

The rules for Movember are easy, start Movember 1st smooth-shaven and then grow a mustache for the entire month. The mustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer:
In the early stages, prostate cancer often causes no symptoms for many years. Prostate cancers is typically first found by an abnormality on a Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test or as a hard nodule (lump) in the prostate gland. PSA is a protein produced by the cells of the prostate gland, present in small quantities in men with healthy prostates, but it is often elevated in the presence of prostate cancer.

Treatment for prostate cancer can included surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy or control of hormones that affect the cancer.

Prostate cancer is among one of the most common types of cancer found in men. An estimated 217,730 new cases were reported in 2010, with 32,050 deaths.