Prostate cancer tests ‘do not represent disease severity accurately’

A new study has demonstrated how the inaccuracy of current prostate cancer tests mean many patients are failing to receive clear information on the severity of their disease.

The University of Cambridge tested 847 men with prostate cancer, with the disease being characterised as a slow-growing form in 415 cases. However, it was later discovered that 209 of these patients actually had a more aggressive variant of the disease.

For almost one-third of the men, the cancer had already spread beyond the prostate, suggesting that current biopsy techniques are failing to provide sufficiently accurate results.

This underlines the need for better tests to define how aggressive a prostate cancer is from the outset, using magnetic resonance imaging technology and new biopsy techniques.

Dr Iain Frame, director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, said: "Existing tests cannot provide a precise picture of the aggressiveness of a man's cancer, often leaving men and their doctors to make difficult decisions about treatment without all the facts."

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with more than 40,000 new cases diagnosed every year.