New strategy needed to improve dismal early detection figures for prostate cancer

All of us have watched as increasing numbers of our family and mates are struck by the disease.

But even I was shocked recently to learn that as many as 630,000 young Australian men face double the average risk of diagnosis because of their family history.

For years Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia has been fighting to counter the myths and misconceptions about prostate cancer - that it's an old man's disease, that men will die with it, not from it, that it's not a killer like some other cancers.

I have news for you. More than 3,500 men aged under 59 are diagnosed with the disease every single year, one of them will die roughly every five days, and often younger men get more aggressive forms of the disease.

Policymakers - please follow.

The burden of prostate cancer in this country, and the toll it takes on our lives, is severe. And yet, if we merely step up and take action to stop the disease before it spreads outside the prostate, we know we can save lives and eliminate deaths.

The five-year survival rate for men diagnosed at Stage 1 is nearly 100 per cent, which should be all the evidence we need to strengthen early detection protocols. Sadly, the fact is only 36 per cent of prostate cancers in this country are diagnosed at Stage 1.

It's a rate of early detection that drops below early detection rates for other common cancers in this country, including breast cancer and melanomas, which have rates of Stage 1 detection of 43 per cent and 78 per cent respectively.

And that is why the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia is launching a major overhaul of the nation's 2016 Clinical Guidelines for PSA Testing.

The existing guidelines were based on evidence and practice which have changed profoundly in the last few years.

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There have been major breakthroughs in imaging and screening techniques. So too in overcoming the historical damage done by overdiagnosis, which has now been resolved through the advent of Active Surveillance.

Today, more than 70 per cent of men with low-risk non-aggressive cancers will be treated with safe and effective surveillance strategies. And if their prostate cancers change and grow, we take action to treat them, immediately, thereby reducing risks of death.

But still, confusion and lack of awareness prevail. Few among us know what the prostate does, and even fewer know what the current guidelines say. To clear this major hurdle in the race for survival, it's time to change the guidelines.

It's time to write new rules, share new knowledge, and get the message out with a significant boost in public education and awareness, building equivalent momentum to the wonderful groundswell of action we have seen achieved for breast cancer.

This September, for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, we call on all Australians to help men go the distance against this disease.

Those who want to take action can go to www.thelongrun.org.au to support PCFA's campaign to save lives.

Ultimately, our goal is to make prostate cancer history, to eliminate avoidable deaths from the disease. If we detect it early, we can achieve that in our lifetime.

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