Prostate cancer: All black men aged 45-74 will be offered screening in major trial expansion

All black men in England aged 45-74 will be invited to take part in an expanded trial of prostate cancer screening, ministers have announced.

The landmark Transform study, currently under way, will receive an additional £20m in funding that will see all eligible black men invited to take part.

The move comes less than a week after routine prostate cancer screening was rejected by the UK’s National Screening Committee (NSC) despite major pressure from high profile politicians and campaigning groups.1 However, the committee did recommend targeted screening with a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test every two years for men aged 45-61 who have a pathogenic BRCA2 gene variant.

The government has now formally accepted this recommendation while adding that it was also expanding the Transform trial in recognition of the higher risk among black men, who are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer. This came after suggestions that the health and social care secretary, James Murray, could bow to pressure and overrule the NCS’s rejection of routine screening.2

Commenting on expanding the Transform trial, Murray said, “This is a major step forward in how we tackle prostate cancer – focusing on those most at risk, improving the treatments available, and backing the research we need to close the evidence gaps and save lives.

“We’re following the science to make sure men get earlier answers and better care, and to avoid doing unnecessary harm. By investing in research through trials such as Transform, we’re building a fairer, more effective prostate cancer screening system for the future.”

The Transform trial is testing the safety, accuracy, and cost effectiveness of combinations of different screening techniques – including PSA blood tests, genetic tests, and fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans – with the aim of catching aggressive cancers earlier.