New row between doctors and charity over prostate cancer risk test

A row has broken out between doctors and the charity Prostate Cancer UK over its online cancer risk test.

Clinicians say the test is leaving men worried, who then swamp GP surgeries with requests for unnecessary appointments.

The test – which asks questions about age, family history and race – informs any man over the age of 50 that they are at a ‘higher risk’ of prostate cancer regardless of other variables.

Prostate cancer mainly affects older men, but just one in 54 between the age of 50 and 59 will be diagnosed with it. This rate rises to one in 19 for men aged 60 to 69, and one in 11 for those aged 70 and over. 

The cancer, which kills more than 10,000 men every year, is more common in black men and those with a family history of the disease.

Clinicians say the test – which asks questions about age, family history and race – is leaving men worried, who then swamp GP surgeries with requests for unnecessary appointments (stock image above)

Public health specialist Dr Ash Paul called the risk assessor, which is available on the Prostate Cancer UK website, ‘one of the biggest scams going on in town right now’. 

He added: ‘More than two million patients have already used the risk checker – guess how many are now clogging up GP surgeries? It’s unethical and wrong, in my opinion.’

Prostate Cancer UK, one the largest cancer charities in the country, claims its online test can tell men whether they are at risk of the disease ‘in 30 seconds’ using ‘three quick questions’.

However, this newspaper has found the test puts a white 50-year-old man with no close family history of the disease in the same risk category as a black 74-year-old whose brother or father has had prostate cancer.

Both men would receive the same advice – to visit their GP. The only difference is that the more at-risk patient would be ‘strongly advised’ to seek help.

Amy Rylance, of Prostate Cancer UK, said its Risk Checker ‘gives people balanced facts’, ‘supporting each man to make an informed choice as to whether having a test is right for him.

‘The information that a man will find on the Risk Checker mirrors the official Government and NHS guidelines.’