The UK has launched a £42 million program to screen men for prostate cancer and reduce deaths from the disease by up to 40 percent.
According to what was published in The Times magazine, the Prostate Cancer Foundation in England launched the “Transform” programme, which is “a pivotal moment in the history of prostate cancer research”, and aims to save thousands of lives in the United Kingdom every year in addition to helping men avoid the harm caused by biopsies and treatments. Unnecessary.
12 thousand die annually from prostate cancer
More than 44,000 men a year in England are diagnosed with prostate cancer, and Cancer Research UK estimates that 12,000 people die from the condition every year.
The program’s screening aims to detect the disease even when no symptoms appear, and TRANSFORM will be the largest trial in prostate cancer screening in two decades, and the only trial at present, and it was developed with support from the NHS and the National Institute for Health and Care Research. and the Government, which has committed to contributing £16 million.
Health Minister Victoria Atkins said: “Our hope is that this funding will help save the lives of thousands more men through advanced screening methods that can detect prostate cancer as early as possible.”
The trial will compare different screening methods and diagnostic processes used in the NHS today, including blood tests, physical examinations and biopsies.
The first phase will include about 12,500 men receiving prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests, genetic tests, and a faster version of an MRI scan, with initial results from the trial expected within three years.
The program aims to reduce deaths by 40 percent
According to Prostate Cancer UK, which is funding the project, previous trials using PSA blood tests and biopsies to screen for the disease showed that the method prevented between 8 and 20 percent of deaths, depending on the regularity of screening.
However, the charity said Transform had the potential to reduce the number of deaths from prostate cancer by 40 per cent.
Dr Matthew Hobbs, director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “Prostate cancer is the most common cancer without a screening programme, and it is time to change that.”
He added: “We know that early diagnosis saves lives, but previous trials were not able to prove that enough men could be saved using PSA tests alone, while showing that these older screening methods caused significant unnecessary harm to men.”
Hobbs continued, “We must now prove that there are better ways to find aggressive prostate cancer that will save more lives while causing less harm.”
The second phase of the trial, which includes up to 300,000 men, will test the most promising options from the first phase of the trial, and the team will follow patients for at least a decade after the trial to track how the screening affects their lives.
Researchers from Imperial College London, University College London, Queen Mary University of London and the Institute of Cancer Research aim to make the trial as accessible as possible by recruiting patients from general surgeries across the UK from next year.
Blacks are more likely to get prostate cancer
One in ten men invited to join the screening trial will be black, given that black men are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as men of other races.
Eligible participants will also be men ages 50 to 75, and Black men ages 45 to 75 can participate.
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