One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Discover the symptoms, how to help prevent it and the simple test to check your risk.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK and more than half a million are living with it or after it.
Early detection is key as almost everyone who’s diagnosed at stage one or two (when the cancer is contained within the prostate gland) will survive for five years or more.
Jeremy Clarkson revealed he was diagnosed with prostate cancer when he was filming Clarkson’s Farm. In season five, the TV star explained that his cancer was aggressive, but caught at an early stage.
There aren’t always symptoms in the early, more treatable stage. Six-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy had no symptoms when he was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and he called on more men to take a simple 30 second test to check their risk – and potentially save their lives.
Prostate cancer is normally measured and described in stages or grades.
The TNM system is a way of staging prostate cancer. It stands for Tumour, Node, Metastasis. Staging describes the size of the cancer and how far it has grown.
The stage describes how much cancer there is and how far it has spread. It goes from stage one where the cancer has not spread outside the prostate gland to stage four where the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
The Gleason score, or Grade Group, refers to how samples of the cancer cells look when compared to normal prostate cells.
The pathologist grades each sample of prostate cancer cells based on how quickly they are likely to grow or how aggressive the cells look.
Former US president Joe Biden had a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) which means his cancer is “high grade” and the cells could spread quickly.
Staging and grading of cancer is important for deciding how to treat the disease and for determining how curable it is.
| Gleason score | Grade group | What it means |
|---|---|---|
|
Gleason score 6 (or 3 + 3 = 6) |
Grade Group 1 |
The cells look similar to normal prostate cells. The cancer is likely to grow very slowly, if at all |
|
Gleason score 7 (or 3 + 4 = 7) |
Grade Group 2 |
Most cells still look similar to normal prostate cells. The cancer is likely to grow slowly |
|
Gleason score 7 (or 4 + 3 = 7) |
Grade Group 3 |
The cells look less like normal prostate cells. The cancer is likely to grow at a moderate rate |
|
Gleason score 8 (or 4 + 4 = 8) |
Grade Group 4 |
Some cells look abnormal. The cancer might grow quickly or at a moderate rate |
|
Gleason score 9 or 10 (or 4 + 5 = 9, 5 + 4 = 9 or 5 + 5 = 10) |
Grade Group 5 |
The cells look very abnormal. The cancer is likely to grow quickly |
Information from Cancer Research UK
One in eight men will get prostate cancer: over-50s are most affected and your risk increases with age.
The cause is unknown and symptoms don’t usually appear until the prostate becomes enlarged and affects the tube that carries urine from the penis (urethra) or the cancer has spread outside of the prostate.
Anyone with a prostate could get it, including trans women and non-binary people who were assigned male at birth and some intersex people.
Factors such as family history could put you at a higher risk, particularly if your father or brother had prostate cancer or your mother or sister had breast cancer.
Ethnicity affects your risk too – it’s more common in Black men compared with other ethnic backgrounds (one in four Black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime). The reason why is not yet known.
(Source Prostate Cancer UK)
Got a spare moment? Take Prostate Cancer UK’s quick and easy online risk checker.
Amy Rylance, director of health services, equity and improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “Prostate cancer often has no symptoms in its early, more treatable stages – so a man could feel fit and well while unknowingly living with the disease.”
“That’s why it’s so important to understand your level of risk, which is higher for all men over 50. If you’re Black, or your dad or brother had the disease, the risk is even greater, so we strongly recommend you speak to your GP from the age of 45.
“Some prostate cancers grow slowly and you might not notice symptoms for many years, so it’s important to know if you’re at risk and what you can choose to do about it.”
Whilst you should not watch and wait for symptoms before discussing your prostate cancer risk with your GP, if you do experience any of the following it is best to contact your GP immediately.
If you do have any of the symptoms listed, or something doesn’t feel quite right, it’s important to see your GP to rule out anything serious.
This can be done with a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test or an examination.
A prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test can help with early detection of prostate cancer, and if you’re over 50 you can ask your GP for one. It’s a simple blood test, but it’s not commonly used for screening because your PSA level can be raised by other, non-cancerous conditions.
If you do have a raised PSA level, your GP may offer you an MRI scan of your prostate to see if you need further tests and treatment.
Early stage prostate cancer doesn’t always need treatment and your doctor might suggest “watchful waiting” or “active surveillance” to keep an eye on it.
Find out more about prostate cancer from the NHS.
Because early stage prostate cancer doesn’t often show any symptoms, it’s important to be aware of your risk.
Awareness of the disease has been improved by Sir Chris Hoy and by celebrities including Stephen Fry, Sir Ian McKellen and Nile Rodgers, talking openly about being diagnosed.
In the week following much-loved TV presenter Bill Turnbull’s death from the disease in August 2022, Prostate Cancer UK saw a 2,500% increase in people using the risk checker, and the charity noticed the “Fry-Turnbull” effect causing a similar spike in referrals.
Then when it was announced in 2024 that King Charles was undergoing a procedure for an enlarged prostate, the NHS said searches soared – with its website receiving 11 times the normal daily visits.
Prostate Cancer UK suggests that a healthy diet and regular exercise are important for health, and might help lower your risk of being diagnosed with advanced or aggressive prostate cancer.
Measures that could help include:
In 2025 there was positive news in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.
A clinical trial by the University of Toronto suggested that “game changing” biopsies guided by high-resolution ultrasound could speed-up diagnosis. Researchers said that the technology would be cheaper and faster than MRI, which is currently used to test for the cancer.
Professor Laurence Klotz, from the University of Toronto, said: “We now know microUS can give as good a diagnostic accuracy as MRI. That is game-changing.
“It means you can offer a one-stop shop, where patients are scanned, then biopsied immediately if required.”
Another trial, this time by five UK hospitals, found that a new more precise method of prostate surgery, known as NeuroSafe, nearly doubles the chances of men retaining their erectile function than standard procedures.
Professor Greg Shaw, the trial lead, told The Guardian: “This procedure gives surgeons feedback during the surgery to give them the certainty they need to spare as many nerves as possible and give men increased hope of recovering their sexual potency after their cancer is surgically removed.”
The news was welcomed by Prostate Cancer UK.
Simon Grieveson, assistant director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “We have seen from previous studies, including the CADMUS trial which was funded by Prostate Cancer UK and the JP Moulton Charitable Foundation, that ultrasound can be used alongside, or as an alternative to, an MRI scan to detect prostate cancer.
“It’s fantastic to see further research into this area and the results of the Optimum trial provides compelling evidence that high-resolution micro-ultrasound scans could provide an alternative to MRI in detecting prostate cancer, particularly for men who are unable to have an MRI for medical reasons, or where MRI is unavailable.”
The charity added that the trial of NeuroSafe was very promising, but that more research is still needed into the technique and there needs to be clarification on whether it could be delivered across the NHS to make it accessible to all men.
Today, prostate cancer is currently the only major cancer without a national screening program in the UK. But Prostate Cancer UK is working to change this.
The £42 million TRANSFORM trial is the most ambitious prostate cancer screening trial in 20 years, developed with the backing of the NHS, and was launched in May 2024.
Hundreds of thousands of men are being invited by their GPs to take part in the trial to find the best way to screen for prostate cancer.
Although it will last for 20 years, the charity says that after three years, it should know the most promising approach.
If you are concerned contact Prostate Cancer UK’s specialist nurses in confidence on 0800 074 8383 or online via the Live Chat instant messaging service on the website
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