Expert panel advises against prostate cancer screening for most men in UK

Charities express ‘deep disappointment’ as government advisers find harms of widespread screening would outweigh benefits

Prostate cancer screening should not be made available to the vast majority of men across the UK, a panel of expert government health advisers has said, to the “deep disappointment” of several charities and campaigners.

The UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) has 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.