Fears have been raised over the accuracy and reliability of DIY blood tests for prostate cancer.
The rapid finger-prick tests, available online and at high street pharmacies for about £14.99, were found to provide inconsistent results.
Of the five that were tested by the BBC with the same blood sample, one returned a false positive and one did not work at all.
Demand for the affordable tests has soared since Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy was diagnosed last year. There is no national prostate cancer screening programme in the UK, unlike for breast, bowel and cervical cancer.
Last month, former PM Rishi Sunak called for prostate testing to ‘go further and faster’ as he became an ambassador for Prostate Cancer Research (PCR).
‘A targeted national screening programme will save lives and reduce the burden on the NHS, since it is far easier and cheaper to treat prostate cancer in its early stages,’ he said.
He warned that current tests, which detect the amount of a protein called PSA in the blood, are only 65 per cent reliable when conducted in ideal laboratory circumstances. At-home kits are likely to be even less accurate.
Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said the rapid tests ‘appear to have questionable accuracy’.
Fears have been raised over the accuracy and reliability of DIY blood tests for prostate cancer
The rapid finger-prick tests, available online and at high street pharmacies were found to provide inconsistent results
Last month, former PM Rishi Sunak called for prostate testing to ‘go further and faster’
‘That’s a big problem because they can falsely reassure people who really do have elevated levels of PSA and should seek further testing, or they can cause undue worry among people who are absolutely fine,’ she said.
The UK’s medicines regulator, the MHRA, says over-the-counter PSA kits are ‘not a reliable indicator of prostate cancer’ and must not ‘claim to detect cancer’. Many are marketed as a way to ‘assess prostate cancer risk’.
PSA is released by the prostate. High PSA levels may indicate prostate cancer, but can also be triggered by other things such as infection or exercise.. It is also possible for prostate cancer patients to have normal PSA levels.
However, new tests developed in Britain may take the accuracy level to well over 90 per cent.
Last week, PM Keir Starmer said the Government ‘shares the commitment’ to detecting prostate cancer earlier and treating it faster, and was working on reforming the NHS to help achieve that.
The Mail’s long-running End The Needless Prostate Deaths campaign is continuing to raise awareness of the disease that kills 12,000 Britons a year. As he announced his decision to become an ambassador for PCR, Mr Sunak said this newspaper’s coverage of the issue had ‘piques my interest’ in the disease.
