MRI tests for prostate cancer ‘would save thousands of lives’

 Giving all men with suspected prostate cancer an immediate MRI scan would save thousands of lives a year, the results of a study suggest.

A trial by British scientists found the comprehensive scan was 12 per cent more likely to detect dangerous tumours than the traditional biopsy, and that the number of men who undergo a biopsy needlessly could be reduced by 28 per cent.

Every year more than 120,000 men in the UK undergo a biopsy, which involves inserting an ultrasound probe into the affected area to take cells from the prostate. The team at University College London believe that with the new strategy, more than a quarter of the one million men who currently undergo a biopsy in Europe every year could “safely avoid it”.

The trial was presented at the European Association of Urology Congress in Copenhagen, with publication in the New England Journal of Medicine.