The UK Government has pledged to introduce targeted prostate cancer screening programme in England and will also invest up to £18 million in the TRANSFORM trial.
This means that men in England at greatest risk – those who are 45 to 61-years-old with both a BRCA2 gene change and a family history of breast, ovarian, pancreatic or prostate cancer – will be offered a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test every two years.
It is expected that the programme will be rolled out from next year.
Due to Government funding, the TRANSFORM trial – designed to discover the best way to screen men for prostate cancer – will now invite all eligible Black men in the UK aged 45 to 74 to participate in the study.
BIVDA welcomes these developments, which will support earlier detection, help save lives among those most at risk, and play an important role in addressing inequalities while strengthening the evidence base for screening.
We recognise that many had hoped for a full national screening programme for prostate cancer. However, these steps represent important progress towards delivering an accurate, accessible screening programme for adult men across the UK in the future.
