The NHS has launched an ambitious prostate cancer research initiative, inviting up to 500,000 men to take part in a landmark study that could transform how prostate cancer is detected and treated.

Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer among men in the UK with more than 50,000 men diagnosed every year, claiming thousands of lives annually. Thanks to advances in medical research and clinical trials, survival rates have improved in recent years. However, there is still much to learn about the disease, particularly around identifying aggressive cancers earlier and reducing the long-term effects of treatment. One of the biggest challenges is that current screening methods for prostate cancer are not accurate enough for routine population-wide screening, meaning many cancers are detected only after symptoms develop.

What is the prostate cancer research programme

Prostate Progress, led by Prostate Cancer Research, aims to recruit as many men to join the research who have had or are living with prostate cancer. The aim is to improve understanding of how prostate cancer is diagnosed and treated as well as understanding the side effects of the treatment and the impact it has on their quality of life.

Men who sign up to the programme will be asked to complete questionnaires about their experiences of living with the disease as well as agreeing for their records to be reviewed for research purposes. Researchers will compare men’s experiences against their records in order to gain real life insight.

It is important that further understanding is gained as to how prostate cancer affects the lives of those living with the disease, so that new tests and tailored and effective treatment plans can be introduced, which will hopefully reduce the long-term effects and improve their quality of life.

The programme could reshape how prostate cancer is diagnosed and lead to new approaches to screening and earlier diagnosis, improving prostate cancer outcomes. For instance, it could help identify more effective and quicker methods of testing for and spotting prostate cancer than the current Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test, and hopefully lead to the development of new tests to improve and encourage earlier diagnosis, reducing both missed cancers and unnecessary investigations. If managed effectively it could also help support the design of future clinical trials and the development of other cancer screening services.

Joining the programme

By joining the programme, participants will help researchers answer some of the biggest unanswered questions about prostate cancer and accelerate progress towards more effective prevention, diagnosis and treatment. We encourage men who receive an invitation to consider taking part, help researchers in what is hoped to be one of the world’s largest prostate cancer research programmes.