Georgetown FD offering cancer screenings for active or retired firefighters

Georgetown Fire Department is officially the first in Kentucky to offer high-risk cancer testing for their firefighters

GEORGETOWN, Ky. (WTVQ) —  Georgetown Fire Department is officially the first in Kentucky to offer high-risk cancer testing for firefighters.

It’s a partnership with Grail LLC, the Galleri test is made to detect more than 50 different types of cancer, even in the earliest stages.
The test is performed by drawing blood, there it can detect fragments of DNA in the blood that have been shed by cancer cells, it can even detect where the cancer is in the body, the department says this is a way to be preventative.

“I feel my job as chief is just take care of our members. We’re just trying to always think of different ways that we can take care of them.  We’re doing a lot of different things to try to reduce the risk of cancer. But in our line of work, you can never completely reduce it completely. So this is a way that we’re able to try to figure out a way to potentially be able to catch cancer early if that was the case,” said Chief Tim Thompson, of the Georgetown Fire Department.

The tests are funded by the city, the department had requested the budget to be amended to be able to do the tests in January, which was approved.
The department says since then they’ve worked hard to make it happen, the test is available for any active or retired Georgetown firefighters.