Expert committee recommends against mass prostate cancer screening

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An expert committee has judged that most men in Britain should not be offered prostate cancer screening. This is despite the efforts of organisations such as Prostate Cancer UK, which said it was “deeply disappointed” with the recommendation. The UK National Screening Committee said that trying to detect the disease using the prostate-specific antigen test was likely to cause more harm than good as it does not improve overall survival rates and sometimes triggers unnecessary treatment. Some men have prostate cancer that grows so slowly it will never pose a threat in their lifetime. The UKNSC has recommended that men with a certain gene variant be screened, but not other at-risk groups. For instance, one in four black men get prostate cancer, which is twice the normal rate. The final decision for screening rests with the government.