Free prostate cancer screening

It’s Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and Dr. Cottone’s urology office in Gulfport had their third annual free prostate screening event today.

Prostate cancer affects men throughout the world. Dr. Cottone’s office has this screening once a year for free to any man over the age of 40 in South Mississippi.

Screenings are recommended at 50 or if you have a risk factor by the age of 40. Some of these risk factors being if you have a family history of prostate cancer or if you are an African-American.

But with or without these risk factors, it is very important to get checked. “Prostate cancer is diagnosed in 160,000 men every year in the United States. It’s responsible for about 30,000 deaths every year in the United States. It’s very important that we get out in front of this disease. We have means to detect it early and early detection is the name of the game. If you detect prostate cancer early, often times it is curable,” said Dr. Cottone.