A Toronto hospital says it's setting what it hopes is a new benchmark for telling men whether they have prostate cancer.

Instead of giving men their biopsy results in a matter of weeks, they receive them in just 72 hours.

It may be the first program of its kind for men in Canada, and it was designed by Dr. Robert Nam to treat the stress associated with tests for prostate cancer.

Nam, a urologist and oncologist at Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre in Toronto, says prostate cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death.

"Yet we have to tell men they have to wait two to three weeks for results," Nam said. "I find that completely unacceptable."

So his hospital has created a rapid diagnosis system to speed up the process for prostate cancer. The biopsies are immediately sent to the lab and are read by pathologists the next day.

The hospital has not changed the way biopsy samples are scanned for tumours; it has merely speeded up the process by using three pathologists who specialize in the often-tricky assessment of prostate tissue. As well, the hospital uses a sophisticated risk assessment tool that mixes in results from standard PSA testing and a rectal exam.

If the pathologists identify cancer, treatment can start quickly. If not, men can move on with their lives.

Patients being screened for prostate cancer tend to be "very, very anxious about it and so this is really treating their anxiety, not treating the disease," said Dr. Linda Sugar, a pathologist.

One recent patient is Dr. Bob Lester, who described the wait as "terrible."

A former physician, Lester has twice endured an agonizing three-week wait for results. This time, in just three days he was told he did not have cancer, and said he was "very relieved."

The same sort of rapid diagnosis system is also being offered for breast cancer at some Canadian hospitals. Supporters like Lester argue that fast diagnosis should be the new standard of care.

But rapid diagnosis programs hinge on the co-operation of labs and pathologists. At the moment, Sunnybrook does five rapid diagnosis cases a week, with the hopes of expanding, depending on resources.

For those who are lucky enough to go through the procedure, the payoff for Dr. Nam is priceless.

"Seeing the relief in their eyes, that they don't have cancer, is unbelievable," he said. "Now that we can offer that in three days, that's the icing on the cake."

With a report from CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip