Boosting prostate cancer funding to match cash for breast cancer could save the lives of 7,000 men a year.
Just £290,000 a week – half the wage of the country’s top-paid footballer – would bring prostate funds in line with breast cancer and dramatically improve survival rates, experts say.
Prostate Cancer UK last night said a £15million annual increase could lead to a national screening programme within five years, vastly better drugs and improved prevention.
The charity was backed by a string of MPs after official figures yesterday revealed prostate cancer is now a bigger killer than breast cancer for the first time.
If an extra £290,000 a week was spent on prostate cancer, 7,000 lives could be saved every year, according to Prostate Cancer UK
They showed 11,800 men a year are dying of the disease in Britain, compared with 11,400 women killed by breast cancer. The gap is set to widen, with annual prostate deaths projected to be 14,500 by 2026.
Experts blamed a gulf in funding, with prostate cancer receiving half the research money of breast cancer over the past 15 years.
The Daily Mail has fought for nearly 20 years to raise prostate cancer’s profile. Care has leapt forwards since the Mail’s campaign was launched in 1999, but progress has been slow compared with advances on breast cancer.
Deaths from breast cancer in Britain have dropped by 1,500 since 1999, in which time prostate cancer deaths have risen by 2,400.
While breast screening is routine, prostate tests are notoriously inaccurate and there is no national screening programme. Breast cancer treatments are ten to 20 years more advanced than those for prostate cancer.
Angela Culhane, of Prostate Cancer UK, said: ‘We’re on the brink of the scientific breakthroughs needed to make a huge difference.’
She believes an extra £120million over the next eight years – raising annual funding from £25million to the £40million received by breast cancer – would bring current research programmes from lab benches into hospitals.
Chilean footballer Alexis Sanchez reportedly earns £600,000 a week after moving from Arsenal to Manchester United last month. Many other players earn around £290,000 a week.
Experts claimed the NHS was sitting on millions of pounds of government funding, which it was refusing to spend until hospitals met cancer waiting targets. They said if hospitals were given the extra money they could treat more patients and waiting times would fall.
Tory MP John Baron, of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer, said: ‘NHS England is presently sitting on millions of pounds of cancer transformation funding, some of which could be used to help prostate cancer patients … I am shortly meeting with the Prime Minister to press for this funding to be released, as frontline services need it now.’
NHS England insisted the full funds are due to be released in stages and will include additional money for prostate cancer.
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: ‘We welcome calls to improve detection and treatment of prostate cancer, which has been long underfunded.’
Tory MP John Baron said millions of pounds is being sat on by the NHS
Martin Tod, of the Men’s Health Forum, believes the lack of funding is partly caused by a ‘fatalism’ surrounding male health. ‘There is an idea that men are bound to die earlier … that they drink, they smoke, they get into fights, so of course they die earlier,’ he said. ‘That whole idea has led to a fatalism, an idea that there is little you can do for men’s health.’
Ms Culhane said a key target is to create a national screening programme to replace the current option – unreliable PSA blood tests and biopsies. Accurate screening could transform survival because men diagnosed at a late stage have just a 22 per cent chance of surviving ten years, compared with 98 per cent if they are diagnosed early.
Prostate Cancer UK is funding a new prostate test which they want to present to the National Screening Committee within five years, involving a far better genetic blood test, followed by a high-tech MRI scan. But far more trials need to be done. And there are currently only a third of the £1million MRI scanners required, and a 9 per cent shortage of radiologists.
Scientists believe new targeted drugs, like those revolutionising ovarian cancer, could transform prostate care, but they still need to be fully tested.
Louise de Winter, of the Urology Foundation, said: ‘We have come a long way in raising awareness but the expenditure needs to catch up.’ Professor Hardev Pandha, oncologist at Surrey University, said: ‘There is an urgent need to find new and more accurate tests.’
An NHS England spokesman said: ‘It is simply untrue to suggest the NHS is sitting on money which could be spent on cancer … There is a clear, two-year plan of investment to transform cancer care, including prioritising prostate cancer, which will see £200million extra funding go into care by March 2019.’
Men simply don’t realise they’re at risk
Simon Lord, pictured, survived after he was diagnosed in 2010
Simon Lord survived his battle with prostate cancer despite having to wait 71 days for treatment to begin.
The 58-year-old was diagnosed in July 2010 following a PSA blood test. About a quarter of his prostate was found to be cancerous.
Mr Lord, a former Territorial Army soldier and a father of three, made a full recovery after surgery. He wants to see more research to flag the disease at the earliest opportunity.
‘I think it comes down to two things,’ he said. ‘Firstly, a lack of a reliable test for early diagnosis. The current PSA test can help – it saved my life – but sometimes it produces false results. Secondly, we need a way of separating cases that are going to be lethal and those that are not going to be lethal.
‘Some forms of prostate cancer are more aggressive, but at the moment we have no idea how quickly the cancer will grow.’
Just 16 weeks after his operation, he completed a half-marathon in just one hour and 48 minutes. He has also raised thousands for the Urology Foundation.
Mr Lord, from Cholsey, Oxfordshire, said: ‘Many men don’t realise factors that put them more at risk, for example having a family history of prostate cancer.’
I’m lucky it was caught just in time
A stroke of luck saved Mr Wood from suffering any symptoms
Ted Wood was diagnosed in 2008 at the age of 60. It was a ‘stroke of luck’ that his doctor recommended a PSA blood test when he went for a regular check-up, as he was not aware of the risk to his age group.
Mr Wood, who was very active and led a healthy lifestyle, opted for brachytherapy – a procedure that treats prostate cancer by the insertion of radioactive implants – which got rid of the tumour.
He now hosts talks on prostate cancer to raise awareness, but believes a lot more could be done.
‘We need to have a screening programme or foolproof test,’ he said. ‘There are not always symptoms – I never had any – and without my doctor recommending the test I would be very sick or dead now.
‘Someone has got to fund it – it will just get worse otherwise. If we can catch it and treat it early it will end up saving the NHS a lot of money in the long run.’
Mr Wood, of Warmley, South Gloucestershire, plans to take part in Prostate Cancer UK’s Bristol March for Men event this year, and hopes that the money raised will go towards a more reliable test.
Q&A
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS OF PROSTATE CANCER?
Needing to go to the toilet more often, particularly at night; taking longer to go to the toilet, starting and stopping, and a pain or burning sensation.
WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I AM WORRIED?
You can request a free PSA blood test from your GP which measures the level of a protein in the blood, called prostate-specific antigen. This can be a sign of early prostate cancer. If this comes back positive, you can be sent to a specialist for further tests.
BUT ISN’T THE TEST INACCURATE?
Yes – to an extent. Some men will have high PSA readings and not have cancer, due to a urinary infection or enlarged prostate. Other men who have cancer will have normal PSA readings. Your GP will look at your PSA readings and carry out other examinations before deciding whether or not you should see a specialist.
WHY ISN’T THERE A NATIONAL SCREENING PROGRAMME?
There just isn’t a reliable test yet. The PSA test would flag up too many false positives – men with high readings who do not have cancer. It may also miss men who do have cancer with low PSA readings. Scientists are in the process of developing a new method based on a combination of blood tests and MRI scans, but this is unlikely to be ready for at least five years.
ARE SOME MEN MORE AT RISK?
Prostate cancer mostly affects men over 50 and the average age at diagnosis is between 65 and 69.
Men whose fathers or brothers have had the illness are two and a half times as likely to be diagnosed. Men are also at risk if their mother or sister has had breast cancer under the age of 60 as it is caused by the same faulty genes.
Black men are more likely to get prostate cancer, as are men who are overweight or obese.
How breast cancer charities show the way
By Ben Spencer, Medical Correspondent
Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer, with 47,000 British men diagnosed and 11,800 killed each year.
However, in the past 15 years it has received less than half the research money that breast cancer has, despite the diseases affecting roughly the same number of people.
The cancers receive roughly the same amount of research funding from the Government – about £10million each over the past decade – but breast charities have been far better at raising money, generating £31million in 2015/16 compared with prostate’s £15million. This is partly because breast cancer has been the subject of major campaigns for 25 years, with the iconic pink ribbon used since 1992.
Cancer Research UK’s annual women-only Race for Life, launched in 1994, has also raised the profile of breast cancer, though the funds are spent on all cancers.
It was not until 2007 that Movember, the annual men’s cancer campaign, came to Britain. And 23 years after the first Race for Life, Prostate Cancer UK last year launched an annual March for Men.
The results of the funding difference is seen in research output – with 9,300 prostate papers globally last year, compared with 21,000 breast cancer papers.
Scientists believe this has led to a disparity in treatment, with drugs and diagnostics for prostate cancer trailing ten to 20 years behind those for breast cancer.
The biggest obstacle has been the lack of reliable tests. Scientists believe they are close to better genetic tests for prostate cancer, but widespread trials of these need funds. High-tech MRI scans have also been shown to be more accurate, but at £1million a machine and £315 a scan, 75 per cent of hospital trusts say they cannot afford it.