Hi Drewstraws

I have come from the "pegging" thread to answer your question you posed about the prostate cancer situation in the UK. The comparison with breast cancer over here gives a slightly different picture - breast cancer cases run at about 44,000 per year with 12,000 deaths while prostate cancer cases run at 35,000 cases a year and 10,000 deaths. This makes prostate cancer the second most common cause of cancer death in men after lung cancer and, on the face of it should command similar awareness and resources as breast cancer. (For reference the UK has a population of about 60 million and deaths from all causes and all ages run at about 600,000/year)

It has to be said that awareness of prostate cancer is gaining momentum over here in the UK but when you realise that it kills about 3 times as many as are killed in road accidents (on which there is a tremendous push for improvement) it is far from gaining the prominence it deserves. Unfortunately, the PSA test is not really good enough as a screening method - 67% of men with raised PSA don't have prostate cancer and 20% of men with prostate cancer have normal PSA levels. The biopsy test is pretty unpleasant (according to a friend who has had it) with a high incidence of prostate infection following the biopsy. It seams to me that pressure needs to be applied to get an effective screening test perfected.