Screening for prostate cancer could be possible in the next five years, according to one of the UK’s leading experts.
Prof Ros Eeles, from the Institute of Cancer Research, said advances in genetics and medical imaging were making it possible.
About 50,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with the disease each year, and nearly 12,000 die.
NHS England said prostate screening had been notoriously tricky.
Despite it being one of the most common cancers, there is no equivalent of the regular mammograms that detect breast cancer.
There is a blood test that looks for levels of a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA). But it is controversial and the UK’s National Screening Committee does not recommend it.
PSA tests are used to guide doctors and help monitor tumours. But using them to screen healthy people means they miss some cancers and cannot distinguish between people with high PSA levels who need treatment and those who do not.
Prostate cancer can be slow growing and tends to affect people in old age. So despite being fatal for some, others can have it growing in their body without it knocking years off their life.
Prof Eeles said only one in 12 men with high PSA levels and aged over 55 needed treatment. The other 11 could have therapy, with harmful side effects, for a tumour that would not have caused them any problems.
“We really need to get better than that. In the breast screening programme it’s three to one,” she said.
Source:BBC
