Medical leaders are issuing an urgent call for the NHS to overhaul its approach to prostate cancer detection in Black men, warning that current practices risk creating a devastating health epidemic.
A new report from the NHS Race and Health Observatory reveals that standard risk assessment tools are fundamentally flawed when applied to Black patients, who face approximately double the likelihood of developing prostate cancer compared to white men.
Systemic Failure in Risk Assessment
The current system uses a one-size-fits-all calculator that fails to account for the significantly higher genetic predisposition among Black men. This means many at-risk individuals are being missed until the disease has reached advanced stages.
Professor Habib Naqvi, chief executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, stated: "We are facing a preventable crisis. The evidence is clear that Black men are being diagnosed later and dying sooner due to systemic gaps in our approach."
Proposed Reforms and Screening Changes
The recommendations include:
- Automatically considering Black men as at higher risk in NHS protocols
- Offering PSA blood tests from age 45 instead of 50
- Implementing targeted awareness campaigns in Black communities
- Training healthcare professionals on ethnic health disparities
Cancer Research UK estimates that implementing these changes could significantly improve early detection rates and survival outcomes.
Avoiding a Future Health Crisis
Without immediate action, experts warn the UK could see a dramatic increase in late-stage prostate cancer diagnoses among Black men over the coming decade. The report emphasises that these are not new discoveries, but rather long-ignored evidence that now demands urgent attention.
The time for change is now, the report concludes, "before more lives are unnecessarily lost to a disease where early detection makes all the difference."
