Summary

  • The UK National Screening Committee is expected to advise against routine prostate cancer screening for the majority of men in the UK - the committee's full ruling will come at 15:00 GMT

  • The advisory committee is expected to say screening all men, including those with a family history, could cause more harm than good

  • A decision is also expected to be made not to introduce screening for black men - the NHS says prostate cancer is "most common in men over the age of 50 or from a black African or Caribbean background"

  • The committee is, however, expected to say it's in favour of screening men with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations - which increase someone's chances of developing cancer - every two years, from age 45 to 61

  • Charities including Prostate Cancer UK have been campaigning for national screening for years - there is currently no such programme in the UK

  • Have you been affected by prostate cancer? What do you think about this decision? Get in touch via email or on WhatsApp +44 7756 165803

Live Reporting

Edited by Sam Hancock, Angus Thompson and Ben Hatton

  1. The challenges surrounding blanket prostate cancer testing

    James Gallagher
    Health and science correspondent

    It seems a simple decision doesn't it - test for prostate cancer, find it, save lives.

    However, it is a far more knotty issue.

    The difficulty is many prostate cancers don't kill you, you could live a full and happy life and die of other causes in your 90s.

    So all arguments around screening are a balancing act - you will save lives, but there are men who could also be left incontinent (unable to control your bladder) and impotent (unable to have an erection) due to treatment from a cancer that would never have killed them.

    We'll get the full details of how these risks and benefits have been calculated later.

  2. The current approach to screening for prostate cancer

    A male clinician wearing blue scrubs speaks to a male patient in a medical clinicGetty Images

    Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. It mainly affects men over 50, and there are about 55,000 new cases diagnosed in the UK each year.

    Despite this, there is currently no nationwide screening programme for the disease in the UK.

    Currently, men over 50 can request a prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test from their GP even if they don't have symptoms, which is usually the first step towards a diagnosis.

    When the National Screening Committee last reviewed the disease in November 2020, it decided the PSA test was not accurate enough to detect prostate cancer needing treatment. It can also miss some cancers, it said.

  3. Symptoms, diagnosis, treatment - understanding prostate cancer

    Prostate cancer develops in the prostate gland, which is about the size of a walnut and sits just below the bladder within the pelvis.

    The gland surrounds the urethra - the tube that takes urine out of the body through the penis.

    Prostate cancer - abnormal and uncontrolled cell growth - often develops slowly and there may be no signs or symptoms for years. In fact, some people never develop any symptoms from it.

    But in others, the cancer can be aggressive and deadly.

    Common symptoms include:

    • Needing to urinate more frequently - particularly at night
    • Difficulty starting to urinate, weak flow and it taking a long time
    • Feeling like you still need to urinate when you've just finished

    Prostate cancer that's detected early has the best chance for successful treatment.

    You can read more about prostate cancer symptoms and treatment here.

  4. What the expert committee is expected to recommend

    Full details of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC)'s decision will come at 15:00, but this is what we expect so far:

    • The UK NSC will not recommend a screening programme for all men as there are concerns that the harms it would cause to men outweigh the number of lives saved
    • They will not support a screening programme for black men, even though they are at twice the risk. This is because there is insufficient evidence they get a more severe disease
    • There will again be no screening programme for those who have prostate cancer running in their families
    • The only group that will be offered screening, according to the expected guidelines, are men with specific mutations of the BRCA gene which increase the risk of more aggressive tumours

  5. Experts expected to advise against screening most men for prostate cancer

    Most men would not be routinely tested for prostate cancer under expected recommendations from the expert group which advises the government and NHS on screening.

    Instead, the UK National Screening Committee is expected to recommend only screening for men with mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes who are between the ages of 45 and 61.

    There is currently no population-wide screening programme for prostate cancer in the UK. But some groups and high-profile individuals have been campaigning for changes - particularly for groups with a higher risk of getting prostate cancer.

    NHS England says men may have a higher chance of getting prostate cancer if they are over 50, come from a black ethnic background, have a family history of the disease, or if a close relative has had breast or ovarian cancer.

    The full details of the committee's report are due at 15:00. Stay with us as we bring you more.