In an interview with the BBC, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has stressed the need for a targeted prostate cancer screening programme for those at highest risk to save ‘countless lives’.
This intervention comes as the UK National Screening Committee mulls over whether to introduce prostate cancer screening, having chosen not to recommend it five years ago.
Mr Sunak has endorsed the approach of Prostate Cancer UK — the charity for which he is a patron — to screen using a PSA test, a biopsy and a MRI scan, as outlined in a new report. They have estimated that this would cost £25 million per year, a similar sum to bowel and breast cancer screening, with Mr Sunak declaring it both affordable and deliverable.
In order to achieve this, diagnostic activity (scans and biopsies) would need to rise by 23%, with only a modest increase in NHS staffing to capture the 20% most at risk, the charity says.
