Bret Hart encouraging men to get their prostate checked

WWE legend and hall-of-famer Bret Hart has had many fierce battles inside the ring, but possibly his most intense battle came outside it.

A little over a month after announcing he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, Hart told The Green Zone Thursday afternoon he is now cancer free.

“I’m cancer free right now but it’s going to take some monitoring for the next few years of getting checked about every three months to make sure there’s no cancer,” he explained.

Hart said after that he will need to make yearly visits to the doctor for a decade to make sure everything is fine.

“They say the key to my success has been the fact that I had early detection and surgery was all I needed. I didn’t have to worry about chemotherapy and radiation and all these other things that can be so devastating against your whole system,” he said.

In 2013, Hart became aware his prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels were increasing. He had a biopsy done which found he had cancer in his prostate, however, Hart was told by his doctor he had the kind that was considered slow-growing. Hart was placed on active surveillance, where each year he would receive another PSA test and biopsy.

It was in 2015 when the cancer had become life-threatening. On Feb. 10, Hart had his prostate removed.

Hart told The Green Zone he had no symptoms and felt 100 per cent.

“That’s the thing about prostate cancer, you know, you can be symptom free right up until it’s too late,” he explained.

Hart is telling his story in the hopes more men will go get tested. He wants men 40 and over to get their prostate and PSA levels checked.

According to cancer.ca, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian men (excluding non-melanoma skin cancers). It is the third deadliest form of cancer in men in Canada.

Based on 2010 estimates, about one in eight Canadian men will develop prostate cancer during their lifetime and one in 27 will die from it.