Don't make prostate screening routinely available, say experts

Prostate cancer screening should not be made available to the vast majority of men across Britain, a panel of expert government health advisers has said, tothe “deep disappointment” of several charities and campaigners.

- Tobi Thomas Health and inequalities correspondent

The UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) has instead recommended there should bea targeted screening programme for men with a confirmed BRCA1 or BRCA2 faulty gene variant, which would mean they are more at risk of faster growing and aggressive cancers at an earlier age. Men in that category could be screened every two years between ages 45 and 61, they said.

Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer, affecting one in eight men. There are about 55,300 new diagnoses and 12,200 deaths each year.

The committee found that the “harms would outweigh the benefits” ifit were torecommend prostate cancer screening for all men or for men with a relevant family history of cancer, as it could lead to a small reduction in the number of prostate cancer deaths but “very high levels of over-diagnosis”.

When it came to screening black men, who have an elevated risk of prostate cancer, the committee found current evidence to be “lacking and uncertain”.

In response to the committee’s draft recommendation, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, said he would “examine the evidence and arguments in this draft recommendation thoroughly”.

The draft recommendation will now be open fora 12-week consultation before a final recommendation tothe governmentis made in March.

Cancer Research UK said it “support[s] the committee’s conclusion that for other groups of men, there isn’t currently enough high-quality evidence that screening would domore good than harm”.