Are Mobile-Optimized Tools Making an Impact in Prostate Cancer?
Are Mobile-Optimized Tools Making an Impact in Prostate Cancer? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Prostate cancer screening can now be accessed via some mobile methods. Dr. Heather Cheng from Seattle Cancer Care Alliance shares information about mobile-optimized tools and access – and how mobile access is working toward health equity.
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Transcript:
Sherea Cary:
Can you speak to any mobile-optimized tools making a difference in prostate cancer?
Dr. Heather Cheng:
So, I don’t know specifically about…well, I can speak about some efforts I know about, but I think the mobile options are really a great idea. And I think the way I would think about it is, there are maybe…and I know this is the case, for example, mammograms. But I know that there can be traveling clinics where they may offer, for example, the prostate-specific antigen blood tests, which can be used as a screening to determine if somebody might have prostate cancer, and that might be something that somebody otherwise is really busy and doesn’t necessarily have access to. Usually, it’s something that is done by the primary care provider but can be done through mobile access, and I think some of the procedures could be done like blood tests for prostate cancer, I think to get an actual diagnosis to really be confident that there is prostate cancer, not something that’s just causing the PSA, that blood test could be high. Sometimes people can have a high PSA without cancer, and so it’s important to actually get a biopsy to help be more confident and know for sure that there’s cancer. That’s usually done in a clinic, but the screening, meaning the sort of trying to figure out if somebody’s at higher risk or not can be done in a mobile van, and I think there are a number of many excellent programs around the country, not enough, probably, but whose mission it is to try to improve access to cancer screening.