Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer across the UK, surpassing breast cancer, according to a leading charity.
There were 64,425 diagnoses of prostate cancer in 2022, an analysis of NHS figures by Prostate Cancer UK found, and 61,640 new cases of breast cancer.
The analysis found there to be a discrepancy at which stage men with prostate cancer were diagnosed, with 31% of men in Scotland diagnosed with prostate cancer at stage 4, compared with 21% of men in England.
About one in eight men across the UK will be affected by prostate cancer in their lifetimes, with approximately 12,200 deaths each year caused by the disease.
One in four black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes. They also have a higher risk of a late-stage diagnosis compared with their white counterparts.
Prostate Cancer UK highlighted the apparent “postcode lottery” with regard to testing and diagnoses of the disease. It found that rates of prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing were highest in the south-east of England and lowest in the north-west.
Men living in areas of higher deprivation were 29% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer that had spread than those living in more affluent areas.
Chiara De Biase, the director of health services, equity and improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said risk awareness campaigns had played a big part in the overall increase, which had led to “more men than ever being diagnosed and treated”.
“Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK, but despite this, men are facing deeply unfair inequities across the country, and their experiences vary hugely based on where they live,” De Biase said. “We urgently need an early detection programme that will address these regional inequities.”
She added: “Mass risk-awareness campaigns have played a big part in causing this increase, such as how in February 2022, we launched a national campaign with the NHS to reach men across the UK to get them to check their risk of prostate cancer.
“We also know that when celebrities like Bill Turnbull, Nick Owen and Colin McFarlane share their prostate cancer stories, men can be encouraged to ask about a test themselves.”
Last year, prostate cancer became the most common cancer in England, but new figures from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland enabled the UK-wide analysis. In Scotland there were 5,608 prostate cancer diagnoses, an increase of 30% compared with previous figures.
Ian Walker, the executive director of policy at Cancer Research UK, said that the figures could be affected by overdiagnosis of the disease, “where PSA tests in asymptomatic men could be spotting cancers that wouldn’t cause any harm”.
A panel of expert government health advisers in November said prostate cancer screening should not be made available to the vast majority of men across the UK.
The UK National Screening Committee instead recommended that there should be a targeted screening programme for men with a confirmed BRCA1 or BRCA2 faulty gene variant, which means they are more at risk of faster growing and aggressive cancers at an earlier age. Men in that category could be screened every two years between the ages of 45 and 61, they said.
This is despite campaigners and charities calling for men at higher risk of developing the disease, such as black men and those with a family history of the cancer, to have screening available to them.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are determined to improve outcomes for men with prostate cancer, and we know that too many men in deprived communities are being diagnosed at a later stage when the disease is harder to treat.
“Last week the NHS expanded access to abiraterone – a treatment that can significantly improve survival rates and give patients precious extra years of life and we are also making progress on cutting cancer waiting times – in the last 12 months, 213,000 more patients received a diagnosis for suspected cancer on time.”
