Men have been urged to put male pride to one side and get checked for prostate cancer, after a charity boss revealed he and his colleagues had been to ‘too many’ funerals of patients who left it too late.
Oliver Kemp, long-serving chief executive of Prostate Cancer Research, said men were ‘pretty rubbish’ at dealing with their own health due to age-old aversions to seeking medical help.
But he said it meant more and more people were dying needlessly with prostate cancer, which could have been treated if detected earlier.
He backed the Daily Mail’s campaign for a targeted prostate cancer national screening programme for high-risk males.
The 46-year-old said: ‘We certainly hear it all the time, people not wanting to go and bother their doctor.
‘Somebody says: ‘Actually, I’ll find out if I’m ill at some point, why do I want to find out early?’ I think the simple answer to that is, if you find out early, it’s perfectly treatable.
‘We are losing 12,000 men a year currently by catching it too late. So bring all those men forward, as many men as we possibly can, we’re going to save a hell of a lot of lives.’
Prostate is the most diagnosed form of cancer in England, with 55,033 cases identified in 2023, the latest figures show. Catching it early improves the odds of successfully treating the disease.
Oliver Kemp, chief executive of Prostate Cancer Research, said men were dying needlessly with the disease after refusing to get checked out
Mr Kemp praised celebrities speaking out about about their health issues, saying: ‘The stigma has been reduced by very well-known and very well-liked people being affected by it’
Analysis by Prostate Cancer Research suggests such a scheme would lead to an extra 775 cases being diagnosed early each year among high-risk men aged 45 to 69.
These include those who are black, have a family history of the disease, or have a particular genetic mutation.
It would also spare almost 300 men a year from a stage 4 diagnosis, when the tumour has spread around the body, making it incurable.
There would be a net economic benefit of £11,900 for every man diagnosed, the study found.
Mr Kemp said: ‘I’ve been in this job for seven years now, and I’ve been to people’s funerals who found out late.
‘In my first year in the job, I went to a funeral with a man in his 50s with two small children. It’s absolutely brutal.
‘And one of the reasons why I’m so invested and the organisation is so invested is that we’ve been to too many of those horrific events, and we want that to stop happening.’
But he praised the likes of six-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy and the late BBC Breakfast host Bill Turnbull in bravely speaking out about their terminal diagnoses.
Olympic great Sir Chris Hoy, who has opened up about prostate cancer diagnosis, pictured wit his wife Lady Sarra Kemp Hoy
Bill Turnbull, pictured with former BBC Breakfast co-host Susanna Reid, died with prostate cancer
Mr Kemp said: ‘I think men in general are pretty rubbish with dealing with their health, and often they’ll have been brought up in an environment where you’re supposed to be tough, you’re supposed to be strong, you’re supposed to be the man of the house, and presenting any form of weakness – it was not a done thing for many, many years.
‘And so I think we need to change that attitude to ensure that people are aware that cancer can affect you, whether you’re an Olympic cyclist or whether you’re not in the best of health. Cancer’s capable of getting you.
‘I think every time somebody who’s liked by somebody else stands up and says something, it encourages someone to have a conversation in the pub, it encourages someone to have a conversation with their spouse, it removes some of that stigma that’s existed for years and years, it encourages people to go out and get checked.
‘The stigma has been reduced by very well-known and very well-liked people being affected by it.’
And he said advances in medical care and treatment meant some of the side effects typically associated with prostate cancer treatment, such as impotence and incontinence, have improved markedly.
Testing efficacy has also developed significantly, meaning patients are less likely to be referred for further treatment on the basis of a false positive.
It is perhaps why 94 per cent of family doctors surveyed for the Daily Mail this week said they were in favour of a national screening programme, similar to those already available on the NHS for breast, bowel and cervical cancers.
Mr Kemp said: ‘For 94 per cent of anybody to say yes to anything these days, it’s absolutely incredible.
Every year, around 12,000 men die from prostate cancer. That is even higher than the number of deaths from breast cancer
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer praised the Mail for ‘shining a light’ on the need to improve outcomes for men affected by prostate cancer
‘Those doctors must really be feeling that they’re having to have far too many conversations with people who have got late-stage cancer.
‘Why are they telling them that their illness is terminal when it could have been caught far earlier, and you’ve got a 100% chance of survival?
‘The fact that we’ve got 94 per cent of 400 doctors turn around and say, we should be doing this is absolutely extraordinary.’
The UK National Screening Committee, which advises the Government on which screening programmes to offer, is reviewing evidence into the benefits of prostate cancer screening for high-risk men and is due to make a recommendation later this year.
But it already has cross-party political support from MPs, including former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and his successor Sir Keir Starmer.
The father-of-two, to seven-year-old daughter Hallie and four-year-old son Finley, said: ‘The political will is out there, and I think the electorate expects politicians of all political persuasions to be able to get behind this.’
