THE Hart Lions Club recently visited Frimley Park Hospital to present a cheque after its latest round of fundraising efforts.

Lions Club are celebrating 100 years in service this year and the Hart arm of the organisation, based in Fleet, currently boasts 22 female members.

After a number of fundraising events for women’s charities such as posh tea, tombola stalls and literary events and quizzes, they decided this year that they’d run an event and raise money on behalf of a local male charity.

The charity of choice was Frimley Park Prostate Cancer Appeal, and a sellout dance evening, which was supported by local group ‘Why’ was organised.

With funds raised topping £1,100 the club were pleased to be able to present such a sizeable cheque to the charity.

“We were delighted to be able to give our club’s support to this worthwhile charity which does such admirable work fighting against prostate cancer,” said Marilyn Robson, the Hart Lions’ president.

In particular, the money will go towards research into fusion template biopsies which help in the diagnosis of prostate cancer in men.

Bruce Montgomery, from Frimley Park Hospital said of the technology: “The benefits of fusion template biopsies in the diagnosis of prostate cancer are that one can accurately target areas of abnormality detected on MRI and be certain that one has hit the target. 

“Frimley Park has been one of the country’s leading promoters of template biopsies, which allow safer biopsies to be taken. 

“They are used to sample the whole prostate, meaning some men had more than 60 biopsies taken at any one time.

“Since we started using MRI on a regular basis, we have managed to reduce the number of biopsies we take routinely, but have had to reply on the skill of the operators in hitting the target. 

“Sometimes these targets are really quite small and one cannot be certain that the unguided biopsy has hit the spot.

“We believe that fusion biopsies offer an encouraging future for the diagnosis of prostate cancer.”

The money donated by the local Lions Club will go a long way in the pioneering treatment and retired consultant urologist ­Bruce Montgomery was thankful for the donation from the club.

“Hart Lions Club have done a really great job raising £1,100 for us and on behalf of all our trustees I would like to thank them and everyone who contributed. The money will be used to help progress the pioneering MRI/Fusion biopsy work at Frimley Park Hospital.”

For more details about the charity of choice visit www.prostate-project.org.uk and for more on the Hart Lions, visit www.hartlions.org.uk.