Lord David Cameron has revealed he was diagnosed with prostate cancer after his wife urged him to get a health check-up with a GP.
The former Prime Minister, 59, said he was told by Samantha to get tested earlier this year after she heard about Soho House founder Nick Jones’s struggle with the disease on the radio.
Lord Cameron said his prostate specific antigen (PSA) test came out worryingly high, before his biopsy confirmed he had the illness.
He told The Times: ‘You have an MRI scan with a few black marks on it. You think, “Ah, that’s probably OK.” But when the biopsy comes back, and it says you have got prostate cancer.
‘You always dread hearing those words. And then literally as they’re coming out of the doctor’s mouth you’re thinking, “Oh, no, he’s going to say it. He’s going to say it. Oh God, he said it.” Then came the next decision. Do you get treatment? Or do you watch and wait?’
The politician has now called for screening to be offered to men most at risk of the disease.
‘I want to, as it were, come out. I want to add my name to the long list of people calling for a targeted screening programme,’ he said.
Lord Cameron, who is now cancer free, said he decided to go for focal therapy and was given another MRI scan after treatment – showing the method had been successful.
Focal therapy uses needles to deliver electric pulses to destroy cancerous cells, and is considered less invasive than radiotherapy or a prostatectomy.
Following his diagnosis, Lord Cameron said he wanted to support a call by the charity Prostate Cancer Research for screening to be offered to men deemed at high risk.
It comes amid the news that the first NHS screening programme for the disease could be given the green light this week – marking a game-changing opportunity to save thousands of lives.
On Thursday, the Government’s National Screening Committee (NSC) will meet to make a decision that could revolutionise early detection and treatment.
The country’s top oncologists, economists and medical ethicists are expected to issue a recommendation on whether to roll out widespread screening in a bid to catch the disease earlier.
But it would likely only be approved for people at highest risk – such as those with a family history or particular genes.
Prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease in men, with around 63,000 diagnoses and 12,000 deaths each year in the UK.
The Daily Mail has long campaigned for a national screening programme – similar to that in place for breast, bowel and cervical cancer – to be implemented.
This call has been backed by Olympic cycling great Sir Chris Hoy, who was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer in September 2023.
The NHS currently uses PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood testing and MRI scans to check for the disease.
Previously there were concerns that screening could lead to overdiagnosis – but advances in technology means this is now less of an issue.
Major studies have found that screening for prostate cancer slashes the risk of dying from the disease by 13 per cent and leads to a ‘sustained’ drop in deaths over several decades.
Researchers from University Medical Centre Rotterdam discovered that one death was prevented for every 456 men invited for PSA tests.
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the team said their study ‘highlights the need for a more targeted strategy’.
Lord Cameron served as the UK’s Conservative Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016.
