Up to 5,000 men every year could be facing unnecessary overtreatment for prostate cancer<\/a> due to \u2018outdated\u2019 guidelines, a charity has warned.<\/p>\n Overtreatment of the disease can lead to side effects such as erectile dysfunction or incontinence, according to Prostate Cancer<\/a> UK.<\/p>\n Patients whose cancer<\/a> is unlikely to progress may only need close monitoring. But experts say out-of-date guidance from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has created a “wild west” of what is implemented in the NHS<\/a>.<\/p>\n The warning comes as the government is currently awaiting advice on a national screening programme for prostate cancer<\/a>, which was launched following Sir Chris Hoy<\/a>\u2019s call for more men to be screened after he revealed in February 2024 that he had been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n A prostate cancer charity has said it has been able to reach \u2018so many more men\u2019 since Sir Chris Hoy revealed he was terminally ill with the disease (PA Wire)<\/p>\n Around one in four men diagnosed with prostate cancer will have a cancer that is so slow-growing it is unlikely to ever cause them harm. <\/p>\n NICE guidance currently only advises active surveillance as the preferred approach for men who have the lowest-risk cancer. But these guidelines have not been updated since 2021, and the Prostate Cancer UK argues they do not take into account advances in testing and diagnosis. <\/p>\n Professor Vincent Gnanapragasam, professor of urology at the University of Cambridge, said: \u201c<\/strong>Active surveillance is the best treatment option for men whose cancer is unlikely to progress or cause them problems in their lifetime.<\/p>\n \u201cBut NICE\u2019s outdated guidelines have created a deeply concerning wild west on how surveillance is implemented by different health care teams. This inconsistency is resulting in a lack of confidence from patients in surveillance, who may instead opt to have treatment they may not have ever needed, risking harmful side effects.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Michael Lewis was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020 (Prostate Cancer UK)<\/p>\n According to the charity, overtreatment rates in England range from 2 to 24 per cent, and it warns that this results in a \u201cpostcode lottery\u201d in which some men receive treatment unnecessarily while others receive monitoring as they should. It also found 35 hospitals have created their own guidelines on what to do.<\/p>\n Michael Lewis, 63, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020. The nurse, from Dudley, said: <\/strong>\u201cMy doctors told me my cancer was \u2018low-risk\u2019 and not likely to spread quickly, so I was put on active surveillance until 2024, when my PSA level started to rise again, so I had surgery to remove my prostate. <\/p>\n \u201cBeing on active surveillance meant I didn\u2019t have to have treatment until I needed to. I was able to continue my everyday life with no side effects. I\u2019m glad I was able to get treatment when I needed it, but having the time without it was so valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: \u201cThanks to advances in research, we can now tell which prostate cancers require immediate treatment, and which men would be better off being monitored with blood tests and scans \u2013 enabling them to delay treatment or even avoid treatment altogether.\u201d <\/p>\n She said the treatments for prostate cancer, such as radiotherapy or surgery, can lead to \u201clife-changing side effects, like incontinence or erectile dysfunction, which can have a huge mental and physical impact on men\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNICE\u2019s outdated guidance is increasing the likelihood of men experiencing these life-changing side effects,\u201d she added. \u201cIt is causing confusion and inconsistency between hospitals in how active surveillance is implemented across England, leading to a postcode lottery of overtreatment.\u201d<\/p>\n The charity is now repeating its call for Nice to update its guidance on active surveillance, claiming this could help up to 5,000 men a year avoid overtreatment.<\/p>\n The UK’s National Screening Committee is currently assessing whether a national screening programme for prostate cancer should be rolled out.<\/p>\n A NICE spokesperson said:<\/strong> \u201cWe are committed to ensuring our guidelines continue to reflect the best available evidence and give patients the best possible outcomes. They are developed by an independent committee, including NHS clinical experts, and are kept under review to ensure they remain current.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are updating our prostate cancer guideline, including a review of the recommendations around active surveillance, and will be assessing whether our suspected cancer guideline recommendations around age-related thresholds for PSA tests for prostate cancer for onwards referral from primary care require updating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-337279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115013395761577673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/7e58550f3b50ca90d619ab85984f97f1Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzMyMzUyOTAy-2.77871982.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/202507_The-Chase-TV-Advert-BTS_Morning_Rosie-Lonsdale_65-Copy.jpeg\")
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