UPDATE - Issue 1 - September 1998
New Screening Hope
After years of frustration, indecision, lack of professional consensus, and the apparent unwillingness of Government to fund a prostate screening programme, it now seems likely that a new feasibility study may soon offer a fresh approach to the issue of early prostate cancer detection.
Research feasibility study
Following a critical meeting in June of the Health Technology Assessment
(HTA) Steering Committee it has been agreed that, as a first step, there
will be funding of £200,000 made available for a 12 month feasibility
study to be conducted by a team from Bristol University.
The full title of the study is "The feasibility of conducting a multi-centre randomised trial of treatments for localised prostate cancer, early detection, recruitment strategies and a pilot study". Moreover, it is expected that the feasibility study will lead to further HTA funded research in this area.
Disproportionate drain on resource
Successive Governments, and certainly including this one, had consistently
made clear where they stood on this matter, with the Department of Health
at the time advising that there was no special advantage in such testing,
particularly as many tests gave false results. And it was also claimed
that raising awareness of prostate cancer incidence could result in a disproportionate
drain on NHS finances.
Lives saved
Happily the surprising but welcome news of the study may ultimately alter
the outlook for many thousands of men who would not otherwise be made aware
of the wisdom of early detection, which in turn can lead to a complete
cure.
What so many of us feel who have been diagnosed early enough to have survived is that although PSA tests can unquestionably lead to difficult choices, it is all we have at present. The plain fact is that taken together with digital rectal examination, biopsies and other well established medical techniques, it can and does save lives.
It is true that there is still a very small possibility of continence problems, and there is the likelihood of sexual dysfunction, but with the latter being responsive to treatment with the new drug Viagra, the future for prostate cancer victims may not be as bleak as it once was.
New research streaming in
There is now significant research streaming in from the US and Canada. And
it is supported and paralleled by some very interesting UK research at
a hospital in South Wales. All of this points to the success which
early cost effective screening can bring in terms of reducing the awful
and unnecessary death toll among men whose lives could in truth be saved.
It is hoped that the study will be examining this new research in depth, since it may mean that eventually one of the Prostate Research Campaign UK's objectives can be achieved. We feel that all men over 55 should be offered tests as a matter of routine, with such routine to include all men over 45 with a family history of prostate problems.
Cancer peak sadness
It has to be remembered that although breast cancer all too frequently
affects relatively young women, so making dispensation of resource more
attractive to a sorely pressed NHS, prostate cancer hits many uncommonly
productive men in their late 50s at the peak of their careers - and sometimes
in positions of awesome responsibility.
Watch this space!
We intend to follow the Bristol study as closely as possible and will be
bringing you reports as information and conclusions emerge.