Test to help prostate patients decide on ops

THOUSANDS of men could be spared life-changing treatment for prostate cancer following a scientific breakthrough.

They can now find out how likely they are to die in the next ten or 15 years, and how much treatment will improve their survival chances.

For a third of prostate cancer patients, or roughly 15,000 of the 47,000 men a year in Britain diagnosed with the disease, the chance of dying is so low that surgery or radiotherapy will give little benefit.

The decision of whether to go ahead with treatment is easier after scientists developed a short computer questionnaire. This gives men their odds of dying from prostate cancer and compares it with their risk of dying from other illnesses in the next ten or 15 years.

They can then see a chart showing their increased chances of survival following treatment. The results are based on men’s stage of cancer, age and test results, and allow them to weigh up the gains against their odds of erectile dysfunction and incontinence after surgery.

It could see more men merely choosing ‘active surveillance’ by a doctor instead. It may also encourage men with worse survival estimates to have treatment.

The Daily Mail is campaigning for urgent improvement of prostate cancer treatments and diagnosis, which lag years behind other diseases such as breast cancer.

Dr Vincent Gnanapragasam, of Cambridge University, who helped develop the questionnaire, said: ‘We believe it could significantly reduce the number of unnecessary – and potentially harmful – treatments patients receive.’

Research on the questionnaire is published in the journal PLOS One.