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Home / News / Andrew calls for increased prostate cancer screening
Andrew calls for increased prostate cancer screening

20th, July, 2010

Andrew calls for increased prostate cancer screening

During question time in the House of Lords on the 19th July, Andrew said, “The Prostate UK charity reckons that 10,000 men a year die needlessly when not diagnosed with prostate cancer.”

He said that although the current testing procedure was not completely reliable, “all men over 50 should have the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test and GPs should be encouraged to encourage them to do so”.

Andrew spoke in response to a question posed by Shadow Lords leader Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, who asked what the government was doing to increase GPs awareness of the symptoms of prostate cancer. She warned that too many GPs “were not vigilant enough and they don’t recognise the symptoms”.

In reply to Andrew, the Health Minister Earl Howe said that last year the Department of Health had written to two primary care trusts “to remind them that any man without symptoms of prostate cancer who wishes to have a PSA test is entitled to have one”.

He added: “It is important that anyone availing of the test does so on a fully informed basis because the test is unreliable and can lead to unpleasant side effects.”

_Watch the debate here, courtesy of the BBC._