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The 15 minute lifesaver for men: It's called a 'Prostagram' - Daily Mail
Nov 30, 2021 2 mins, 36 secs

The actor Stephen Fry, who had prostate cancer in 2017, flagged up 'an important prostate cancer trial', adding: 'Do consider offering yourself for this', which led to Mark enrolling.

It was thanks to the trial at Imperial College London, which was investigating a new, fast way to detect the disease, that Mark was found to have an aggressive tumour despite not having any symptoms.

Researchers believe that the speedy type of MRI scan that revealed Mark's tumour could be a reliable method for early detection of aggressive prostate cancers — and lead to a national screening programme for the disease, saving hundreds of lives a year.

It's also been tweaked to reveal the tell-tale signs that a prostate tumour is aggressive.

In the trial, men were given the short MRI scan – called a Prostagram in a nod to the mammogram for breast cancer – and a PSA test.

Remarkably, Prostagram picked up aggressive cancers in men who had low PSA scores.

A larger trial is likely to follow next year and researchers hope that within ten years the Prostagram will be the basis of mass screening of men aged 50 to 70.

In 2019, when Mark, then 59, had the Prostagram, his PSA test was 1.7.

'I am very lucky,' says Mark, who is married to Sandra, 56, and has two daughters.

David Eldred-Evans, a urological surgeon and senior research fellow on the trial, explains: 'We worked out which parts of the standard 40-minute scan are important for diagnosing potentially aggressive prostate cancers.

Researchers believe that the speedy type of MRI scan that revealed Mark's tumour could be a reliable method for early detection of aggressive prostate cancers — and lead to a national screening programme for the disease, saving hundreds of lives a year.

Professor Hashim Ahmed, head of urology at Imperial College NHS Trust, believes the Prostagram has the potential to form the basis of a 'fast, mobile national screening programme for prostate cancer and could be a game-changer'.

Dr Eldred-Evans says that because it doesn't look for low-grade cancers — by the age of 70 to 80, half of all men will have a slow-growing prostate cancer but it will not harm them — the Prostagram is less likely to cause as much over-diagnosis as a PSA test.

The study, involving 408 men and published in the journal Jama Oncology, showed a Prostagram picked up 75 per cent of aggressive cancers compared with PSA's 41 per cent.

'Ours is one of the first studies that has even been able to find prostate cancer in men with a low PSA,' says Dr Eldred-Evans.

Dr Eldred-Evans says men should still be encouraged to have a PSA test for now, but points out: 'If you look at the history of the PSA test, it was invented as a marker for monitoring prostate cancer rather than diagnosing it.' Another advantage of a Prostagram screening is there would be no need for a rectal examination by a doctor.

Although Mark was otherwise healthy, in 2014 he developed problems urinating, which can be the sign of an infection, an enlarged prostate, or prostate cancer.

Mark had his Prostagram in February 2019, travelling from his home in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, to London.

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