Thank you for contacting me about prostate cancer screening.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the UK, and we must do more to ensure that more prostate cancers are caught early.
At present, only half of prostate cancers are diagnosed at stages 1 and 2, short of the 75 per cent target set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. Raising awareness of prostate cancer is key to driving earlier diagnosis and increasing survival rates, particularly for men at higher risk, as you state, such as black men and those with a family history of prostate cancer.
There is a particular challenge with diagnosing men who have no symptoms during the early stages of prostate cancer. I am supportive of Prostate Cancer UK's campaign to change NHS guidance so that men at greater risk of prostate cancer are proactively told by GPs about Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) testing.
On research, I strongly welcome that the previous Government partnered with Prostate Cancer UK to fund a £42 million prostate cancer screening trial - TRANSFORM - that will use innovative screening methods like an MRI scan to detect prostate cancer and develop more evidence around the effectiveness of screening. I call on the new Government to support this new trial, which offers the potential to identify better ways of diagnosing prostate cancer and save the lives of thousands of men each year.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
