Evaluating prostate cancer screening

Early detection of prostate cancer could increase the chance of successful treatment in some cases.

Currently, men can be tested for the presence of a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA) in their blood. High levels of PSA can indicate prostate cancer, but PSA levels may also be raised for other reasons. Furthermore, around one in five men with normal levels of PSA will have prostate cancer. As a result, doubts have been raised about the usefulness of the PSA test in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, suggesting that it can lead to needless anxiety and over-treatment.

ProtecT is a large-scale clinical trial funded by the NHS Health Technology Assessment programme that aims to discover the best treatment for early prostate cancer. Around 250,000 men are being invited for a PSA test and those men found to have cancer are treated with surgery, radiotherapy or active monitoring (known as 'watch and wait').

Cancer Research UK has recently agreed to fund an extension to the trial. It will compare men being screened in the ProtecT trial with those in the general population. This is to investigate whether screening men for prostate cancer using the PSA test can help save lives, or whether it leads to more men being treated unnecessarily. Professor Freddie Hamdy at the University of Sheffield is one of three scientists leading both the ProtecT study and the Cancer Research UK-funded extension.