Home tests can catch prostate cancer early

HOME testing kits which can detect prostate cancer five years sooner than regular screening could become widely used following a new study.

Approximately 2,000 men are being posted the kits as part of a trial by the University of East Anglia.

If successful, the technology could be rolled out for all men of the right age as a more accurate and convenient form of screening that could save countless lives.

The kits work by detecting gene expressions of prostate cancer in urine.

A pilot study suggests it can do so up to five years earlier than the standard clinical methods.

These involve blood tests, a physical examination, MRI scans and biopsies.

Scientists hope that, as well as detecting new cancers earlier, the kits will be used for the periodic monitoring required for the thousands of men who have already been diagnosed but whose tumours are stable or growing very slowly.

Lead researcher Dr Jeremy Clark, from the university’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.

“However, it usually develops slowly and the majority of cancers will not require treatment in a man’s lifetime.

“It is not a simple matter to predict which tumours will become aggressive, making it hard to decide on treatment for many men.”

He added that the urine tests could make monitoring of cancer in men “so much less stressful for them and reduce the number of expensive trips to the hospital”.

Secretions from the prostate, just below the bladder, naturally flow into the urethra and end up in urine.

These carry cells and molecules from all over the prostate, and analysis of the urine is a way of sampling the whole prostate in one go.

Dr Clark said he hoped the kits could enable men with a negative test to be retested less frequently, every two to three years, “relieving stress to the patient and reducing hospital workload”.