David Cameron reveals prostate cancer diagnosis and urges targeted screening
Former British prime minister David Cameron said he was successfully treated for prostate cancer and used his platform this week to press for a targeted screening programme for the disease, the most common cancer in men in the U.K.
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Cameron told The Times he was prompted by his wife, Samantha, to get tested after the couple heard Soho House founder Nick Jones speak about his own cancer experience on the radio. Cameron said the sequence of investigations began with a prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, blood test, followed by an MRI scan and a biopsy that confirmed malignancy. “You always dread hearing those words,” he told the newspaper.
The former Conservative prime minister said he had focal therapy, a less invasive treatment in which focused energy — in his case delivered as electrical pulses — is used to destroy cancer cells while limiting damage to surrounding tissue. He said the scan had revealed a problem early enough to allow intervention. “It helped me discover something that was wrong. It gave me the chance to deal with it,” he said.
Cameron said he did not relish discussing private health matters but felt obliged to add his voice to a public debate he called overdue. “This is something we’ve really got to think about, talk about, and if necessary, act on,” he told The Times, urging consideration of screening for men at higher risk.
Prostate cancer is diagnosed in about 55,000 men in the U.K. each year, making it the country’s most common male cancer. Yet Britain does not have an established national screening programme for prostate cancer, largely because of long-standing concerns about the accuracy of PSA tests and the risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Cameron acknowledged those complexities. “I know it’s not a slam dunk,” he said. “There are respectable arguments against a screening programme. You’ve always got to think how many cases do we discover and how many misdiagnoses are there and how many people will be treated unnecessarily.” But he added that technological and scientific advances made it timely to revisit the question.
The former prime minister’s disclosure comes as the U.K. launches a major research effort to refine prostate screening. The Transform project will compare a range of screening methods against current NHS diagnostic pathways, which often include PSA testing and follow-up biopsies. The National Institute for Health and Care Research has committed £16 million in funding, with additional support from charity Prostate Cancer UK.
Transform aims to identify approaches that can better separate cancers that are likely to be life-threatening from those that are indolent, reducing unnecessary invasive testing and treatment. Its rollout, in partnership with the NHS, will invite eligible men to join the trial in the weeks and months ahead.
The timing coincides with a forthcoming decision by the U.K. National Screening Committee on whether existing evidence supports introducing a national screening programme for prostate cancer. That body evaluates benefits and harms, including detection rates, false positives and the potential for overtreatment — a key reason screening has not been adopted previously.
Public figures who speak about their health can change public behaviour and spur policy debate. Cameron said he hoped his announcement would nudge men who are reluctant to seek medical advice. “Let’s be honest. Men are not very good at talking about their health. We tend to put things off,” he said, adding that embarrassment around prostate and sexual health contributes to delay.
Experts say targeted screening — focused on higher-risk groups such as men with a family history of prostate cancer or men of Black African and Caribbean ancestry, who face higher incidence and mortality — may offer a middle path between universal screening and the current ad hoc approach. Trials such as Transform are designed to test that hypothesis by comparing different thresholds, imaging strategies and follow-up protocols.
Critics of wider screening warn that PSA tests can detect cancers that would never cause symptoms in a man’s lifetime, and subsequent treatments can lead to urinary, bowel and sexual side effects. Advances in MRI imaging and more precise biopsy techniques, however, have reduced the uncertainty that once dominated the screening debate, proponents say.
Cameron framed his intervention as a call for renewed scrutiny rather than an endorsement of a blanket programme. “The circumstances are changing. The arguments are changing, and so it’s a really good moment to have another look at this,” he told The Times.
Whether the political weight of a former prime minister will shift policy remains to be seen. For now, Cameron’s disclosure adds a prominent voice to a conversation that combines personal experience, public health trade-offs and the promise of improving detection through clinical trials. The Transform project and the National Screening Committee’s decision will be watched closely by clinicians, patients and policymakers as they weigh the best route to reduce prostate cancer deaths while minimising harm from overdiagnosis.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
