David Cameron has revealed he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year.
The ex-PM was urged to get a prostate test by wife Samantha after she heard a radio interview with Soho House founder Nick Jones in which he told how a check had picked up his cancer.
Lord Cameron, 59, had a prostate-specific antigen test (PSA), which looks for proteins associated with prostate cancer, and the results came out concerningly high.
‘You always hope for the best,’ said Lord Cameron, who is now cancer free.
‘You have a high PSA score, that’s probably nothing. 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 prostate cancer? You 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”.’
He is now calling for a targeted national screening programme.
The Conservative peer’s wife encouraged him to get checked out after listening to a radio interview with Mr Jones, 62, in which he said a PSA test picked up his cancer in 2022 and he had it treated.
Samantha Cameron, Lord Cameron’s wife, urged her husband to get checked out by his GP
The Daily Mail is campaigning to end needless prostate cancer deaths and has called for a national screening programme to be introduced
Mr Jones, founder of private members’ club Soho House, is a supporter of the Daily Mail’s campaign to stop needless prostate cancer deaths with the introduction of a national screening programme.
A trustee for the charity Prostate Cancer Research, he is marshalling contacts, using his influence, getting diverse groups of people together to endorse male testing.
He said he wanted to make sure men didn’t ‘die of embarrassment’.
Lord Cameron said it was important to reveal his diagnosis because ‘I’ve got a platform’.
He added: ‘This is something we’ve really got to think about, talk about, and if necessary, act on. I don’t particularly like discussing my personal intimate health issues, but I feel I ought to.
‘I sort of thought, “Well, this has happened to you, and you should lend your voice to it”.’
He said men were not good at discussing their health and tended to put things off, adding: ‘We’re embarrassed to talk about something like the prostate, because it’s so intricately connected with sexual health and everything else.
‘I would feel bad if I didn’t come forward and say that I’ve had this experience – I had a scan. It helped me discover something that was wrong. It gave me the chance to deal with it.’
Once the biopsy confirmed he had cancer, Lord Cameron said he had to decide on whether to watch and wait or take action.
His older brother Alexander, a barrister, died from pancreatic cancer aged 59 in March 2023. ‘It focuses the mind. I decided quite quickly,’ Lord Cameron said. ‘I wanted to move ahead and that’s what I did.’
Lord Cameron opted for focal therapy, and was given another MRI scan after treatment, which showed it had been successful.
Focal therapy uses needles to deliver electric pulses to destroy cancerous cells and is less invasive and gruelling than radiotherapy or a prostatectomy. The peer said: ‘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 is now putting his weight behind a campaign by the charity Prostate Cancer Research for screening to be offered to men at high risk of the disease.
Lord Cameron believes technology has transformed early testing and increases the importance of a national programme.
He does not think it will be long before routine screening could be rolled out to all older men and help save the lives of the 12,000 who die from the cancer in the UK each year.
‘The circumstances are changing,’ he said.
‘The arguments are changing, and so it’s a really good moment to have another look at this.’
It comes amid news that the first NHS screening programme for prostate cancer could be given the green light this week.
On Thursday, the Government’s National Screening Committee (NSC) will 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.
But it would likely only be approved for people at highest risk – such as those with a family history or particular genes.
Chiara De Biase, director of health services, equity and improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: ‘We’re glad to hear that David Cameron found his prostate cancer at an early stage and had successful treatment.
‘We thank him for sharing his story and raising vital awareness of this disease, which is completely curable if found early. But men’s lives should not be left to chance.’
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.
Lord Cameron was vocal about his support for prostate cancer awareness during his time in No10. His government established the Cancer Drugs Fund to provide access to drugs not routinely available on the NHS.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK as more than 56,000 are diagnosed each year.
There is no screening programme because of concerns about the accuracy of PSA tests.
But Mr Cameron told The Times: ‘I know it’s not a slam dunk. 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 it seems to me that quite a lot of things have changed over the last few years.’
