New test to spot prostate cancer could be in use in surgeries within months



Breakthrough: The new test is up to 70 per cent accurate

The first reliable test for prostate cancer could be available to British men within months.

All older men could soon be screened for the disease, as women are for breast cancer.

A version of the test kit suitable for home use is also in development which, like a pregnancy test, could provide results from just a few drops of urine within minutes. It is expected to cost less than £100.

Professor Robert Winston has hailed the ‘exciting discovery’, which is the culmination of three years of research at the University of Surrey.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in British men, affecting 37,000 a year and killing more than 10,000. But the lack of a reliable test has made widespread screening impossible.

The current blood test measures levels of a protein made by the prostate, but false positive and negative results mean that the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is wrong more often that it is right.

At present, many men are subjected to painful, embarrassing and unnecessary tests, while in other cases fledgling cancers are missed until they have spread to other parts of the body and are much harder to treat.



The new test looks for the production of a different protein, called EN2, and initial studies show it to be much more accurate. In trials on 288 men it detected up to 70 per cent of cancers, making it roughly twice as good as the PSA test.

Importantly, it gave false positive results just 4 per cent of the time – ten times less often than the PSA test, the journal Clinical Cancer Research reports.

Focusing on urine rather than blood also has the advantage of dispensing with needles.

Larger-scale trials on thousands of British and American men are under way, and if the test fulfils its initial promise it could be available in private clinics by the end of this year.

EXERCISE CUTS RISKS

Regular exercise can significantly cut the risk of bowel cancer, research shows.

Just 30 minutes of activity a day has been shown to reduce the chance of developing polyps – growths which can become cancerous – by a third.

Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine found that people who took regular exercise were 30 per cent less likely to develop the larger polyps most at risk of becoming cancerous.

The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, looked at data from 20 previously published pieces of work.

Lead author Dr Kathleen Wolin said: ‘Exercise has many benefits, including boosting the immune system, decreasing inflammation in the bowel and helping to reduce insulin levels.’

Bowel cancer is the third most common form of the disease, and the second most common among women. There are around 38,600 cases a year in the UK.

It is hoped that NHS use and even a national screening programme will follow, aimed at spotting the disease in its earliest stages.

Professor Hardev Pandha, one of the project’s researchers, told Sky News: ‘The technology that underlies the test is so simple that having a desktop apparatus in a GP’s surgery would be very, very straightforward.’



Lord Winston, the presenter of popular science TV programmes and a leading fertility doctor, said: ‘This is an exciting discovery which advances the early detection of this cancer.’

The Prostate Project, which funded the research, said it was ‘elated’ at the development. Tim Sharp, a trustee of the charity, added: ‘This is brilliant. Early treatment is absolutely the key to prostate cancer.

‘If you catch it early, you’ve got an 80 per cent chance of a cure. If you catch it late, that drops to 20 per cent.’

However The Prostate Cancer Charity urged caution. John Neate, its chief executive, said that while ‘a reliable urine test for prostate cancer would be an exciting and invaluable breakthrough’, future developments would be likely to involve a combination of tests.