Prostate cancer study raises new questions over NHS testing

Prostate cancer screening is as good as breast cancer screening, according to a German study that has reignited the row over how the NHS tackles the disease.

- James Tapper

Researchers compared data from Germany's Probase prostate screening trial with the country's breast cancer screening programme. They found that both identified invasive cancers at similar rates (discovering about seven in 10 cancers), and similar proportions of men and women were referred for biopsies to investigate lumps (about 1%).

However, prostate screening led to more wrong diagnoses with about 40% false positives compared with 10% for mammograms. Both types of screening identified substantial numbers of cancers that turned out to be non-aggressive - 22% for women and 26%-31% for men. But fewer men were referred for biopsies unnecessarily.