Prostate Cancer: Screening
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to introduce national screening for prostate cancer by level of risk.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) advises ministers and the National Health Service on all aspects of population and targeted screening. Screening for prostate cancer is currently not recommended in the United Kingdom. This is because of the inaccuracy of the current best test, the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA). A PSA-based screening programme could harm men, as some of them would be diagnosed with a cancer that would not have caused them problems during their life.
The UK NSC is currently undertaking an evidence review for prostate cancer screening, and plans to report within its three-year work plan. The evidence review includes modelling of several approaches to prostate cancer screening, which includes different potential ways of screening the whole population from 40 years of age onwards, and targeted screening aimed at groups of people identified as being at higher than average risk, such as black men or men with a family history of cancer.
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