Despite prostate cancer being the most common cancer among men in the UK, only half of prostate cancers are diagnosed at stages 1 and 2, short of the 75 per cent target set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. Raising awareness of prostate cancer is key to driving earlier diagnosis and increasing survival rates, particularly for men at higher risk, such as black men and those with a family history of prostate cancer.
There is a particular challenge with diagnosing men who have no symptoms during the early stages of prostate cancer. I am supportive of Prostate Cancer UK's campaign to change NHS guidance so that men at greater risk of prostate cancer are proactively told by GPs about Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) testing.
As you may know, the UK National Screening Committee is currently reviewing the clinical effectiveness and cost of several approaches to prostate cancer screening, and I will consider their findings when they are published.
On research, I strongly welcome that the last Government partnered with Prostate Cancer UK to fund a prostate cancer screening trial - TRANSFORM - that will use innovative screening methods like an MRI scan to detect prostate cancer and develop more evidence around the effectiveness of screening.
I call on the Government to continue supporting this trial, which offers the potential to identify better ways of diagnosing prostate cancer and save the lives of thousands of men each year.
