Men with suspected prostate cancer should be given an MRI scan as a first option, one of the country’s leading experts said in a criticism of “illogical” official guidance.
Mark Emberton, of University College London, said rules updated this week had missed an opportunity to save lives by recommending scans to spot tumours more quickly and gauge how dangerous they were. Patients with a high prostate specific androgen (PSA) score should demand a scan before having a biopsy, he said.
Every year 40,000 men are told they have prostate cancer and 10,000 die of Britain’s most common cancer in men. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended this week that men with low and medium-risk cancers should avoid immediate treatment because of huge