Prostate cancer screening is set to be restricted to a small number of men despite growing calls for a wider rollout.
Charities said the recommendation was “condemning thousands to preventable deaths” and would entrench health inequalities for another generation.
Campaigners have been calling for the rollout of targeted screening, in particular for black men and those with a family history of the disease.
But on Thursday, the UK National Screening Committee (NSC) ruled that the vast majority of men should be denied screening, narrowing its recommendations further from draft proposals published in November.
Lord Cameron, the former prime minister, who revealed last year that he had been treated for prostate cancer, urged the new Health Secretary to reject the plan and roll out wider screening.
Lord Cameron, 59, said the latest recommendation was “a real step backwards.”
He said: “As I warned last November following the initial advice, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among British men. We are letting down too many men, their families and loved-ones if we don’t push for a wider screening programme that includes all high-risk groups.”
“Prostate cancer can be symptomless early on – as it was in my case. That’s why screening is essential – catching the cancers early when they can be more effectively and successfully treated, like with me.”
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with about 63,000 diagnoses and 12,000 deaths annually. However, it remains the only major cancer without a national screening programme.
The Telegraph is calling for the introduction of targeted screening so that men at the greatest risk – including black men, those with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene variants, and those with a family history of the cancer – are offered tests.
In November, draft proposals from the NSC recommended that only men aged 45 to 61 with BRCA1 or BRCA2 variants should be eligible for screening.
Charities’ concerns
The proposals prompted immediate criticism from charities, campaigners and MPs, who called for a wider rollout.
In March, The Telegraph revealed that the committee was considering limiting its recommendations further, so that only men with the BRCA2 variant would be eligible for tests.
On Thursday, the committee announced that it would not only do this but also intended to narrow eligibility further. Within this group, men will only be eligible if they have a pathogenic BRCA2 gene variant and a family history of breast, ovarian, pancreatic or prostate cancer.
The committee was unable to say how many men might be eligible, with Prof Sir Mike Richards, the chairman, suggesting it might amount to “a few thousand”.