Cancer test at home on ‘first wee of the day’

A HOME urine test for prostate cancer would speed up diagnosis and prevent painful and unnecessary treatment for thousands of men, say doctors.

The Prostate Urine Risk test, developed by British scientists, works by looking at genetic information stored within urine and uses the ‘first wee of the day’ which produces chemicals offering a more accurate analysis.

The ‘home collection kit’ would mean men don’t have to visit a clinic – or have to undergo an uncomfortable examination.

As well as diagnosing aggressive prostate cancer, the test predicts whether patients will

■ THE number of cancer sufferers in the UK has risen by almost a fifth in five years to nearly 3million. Some 1.62million women and 1.27million men are expected to be living with the disease next year, Macmillan Cancer Support revealed. This is almost 500,000 cases more than were recorded in 2015. Macmillan said the main reasons are a growing population, with more people being diagnosed, and people living longer, with many cases among older people. Improving rates of diagnosis and treatments also mean more people are living for longer with the disease.

require treatment up to five years sooner than standard methods.

Lead researcher Dr Jeremy Clark, of East Anglia university’s Norwich Medical School, said: ‘Doctors struggle to predict which tumours will become aggressive, making it hard to decide on treatment.’ He said the PUR test provides vital

information about whether a cancer is aggressive or ‘low risk’. The test could ‘revolutionise’ how patients are monitored in the future and ‘reduce hospital workloads’, he added.

The findings, published in BioTechniques, could also help pioneer the development of home tests for bladder or kidney cancer.