August 13, 2014
Dozens of cyclists pedalled from Muskoka to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre on Aug. 10 as part of last Sunday’s annual Tour de Bleu, raising funds for the purchase of a state-of-the-art MRI scanner that will aid prostate cancer patients at Sunnybrook.
Peter Gilgan, the founder and CEO of Mattamy Homes, created the Tour de Bleu in 2005 to combine his love of cycling and his commitment to supporting community initiatives. The Tour de Bleu, Mattamy Homes and the Peter Gilgan Foundation have made a combined donation of $1.8 million toward prostate cancer care at Sunnybrook.
“We’re very grateful for the generosity that Mr. Gilgan, his company and his fellow riders have demonstrated toward Sunnybrook,” says Dr. Jon Dellandrea, president and CEO of Sunnybrook Foundation. “With the purchase of an MRI, we will be able to provide the best possible prostate cancer diagnostic imaging.”
The MRI scanner will be essential to one of the centre’s three pillars: rapid, state-of-the-art prostate cancer diagnosis. MRI provides superior imaging of soft tissues and tumours, enabling medical staff to detect prostate cancer at the earliest stages and in some cases find tumours missed by standard imaging. MRI also allows targeted prostate cancer biopsies that require as few as two tissue samples, rather than the standard 12 samples.