Nurses facing \u2018abhorrent\u2019 violence levels while in A&E<\/a><\/p>\nIt also claims the outdated guidance is hindering a screening programme for prostate cancer.<\/p>\n
Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “To reduce the harm caused by prostate cancer and build the foundations for a screening programme, we need to both save lives and prevent unnecessary treatment but official guidelines still haven\u2019t caught up with the clinical evidence.<\/p>\n
“Concerns about overtreatment are a major reason the UK does not routinely screen for prostate cancer, despite it being the most common cancer in England.<\/p>\n
“Acting on latest research that shows more men can safely opt for monitoring instead of treatment will reduce overtreatment and the harm it causes men.<\/p>\n
“We asked Nice to update their active surveillance guidance two years ago, but our request was rejected. Now we have evidence this is potentially affecting thousands of men. Enough is enough.”<\/p>\n
The NHS uses a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test to check for prostate conditions including prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate.<\/p>\n
Routine PSA testing is not currently offered on the NHS, but patients may be offered a PSA test if a GP suspects they have prostate cancer, while men over 50 can request a test from their GP even if they do not have symptoms.<\/p>\n
However, there have been calls to roll the test out across the health service, although some argue widespread use could identify cases which may not have caused problems or needed treatment.<\/p>\n
Vincent Gnanapragasam, a professor of urology at the University of Cambridge, said: “Active surveillance is the best treatment option for men whose cancer is unlikely to progress or cause them problems in their lifetime.<\/p>\n
“But Nice\u2019s outdated guidelines have created a deeply concerning wild west on how surveillance is implemented by different healthcare teams.<\/p>\n
“This inconsistency is resulting in a lack of confidence from patients in surveillance, who may instead opt to have treatment they may not have ever needed, risking harmful side effects.<\/p>\n
“Programmes for active surveillance that are standardised and individualised to a man\u2019s risk factors have been tested and proven to work.”<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s National Screening Committee is currently assessing whether a national screening programme for prostate cancer should be rolled out.<\/p>\n
A Nice spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring our guidelines continue to reflect the best available evidence and give patients the best possible outcomes.<\/p>\n
“They are developed by an independent committee, including NHS clinical experts, and are kept under review to ensure they remain current.<\/p>\n
“We are updating our prostate cancer guideline, including a review of the recommendations around active surveillance, and will be assessing whether our suspected cancer guideline recommendations around age-related thresholds for PSA tests for prostate cancer for onwards referral from primary care require updating.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overtreatment of the disease can lead to side effects such as erectile dysfunction or incontinence, according to Prostate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-69688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}