Prostate cancer screening possible in five years, expert says
Around 50,000 men in the UK are told they have the disease each year and one in eight will be diagnosed in their lifetime
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Technological advances mean it may be possible to screen for prostate cancer in the next five years, one of the UK’s leading experts has said.
At present there is no national screening programme for the disease, but Ros Eeles from the Institute of Cancer Research hopes that will change.
“With the advances in genetics and also imaging, particularly MRI realistically we do need some more data, but we’re probably looking at getting close to a tailored screening programme in the next three to five years,” the professor of oncogenetics said.
“We might need to use all of them together … so we can find those who have significant disease,” she added in comments to Radio 4’s Today programme.
Around 50,000 men in the UK are told they have the disease each year and one in eight will be diagnosed in their lifetime.
A blood test known as Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA), which detects proteins in the prostate gland, can be used to evaluate a patient’s risk of getting the disease, but it does not accurately distinguish between dangerous cancers from harmless ones.
This, the researchers say, can lead to both unnecessary operations and missed cancers that are harmful.