Exclusive:
Ian Mason, of Oxfordshire, got some devastating news after being asked by his GP to trial a prostrate cancer saliva test – which may be rolled out on the NHS to all men over 40
A vet has told how his life was saved after taking part in a trial of a new saliva test to randomly check people for prostate cancer.
Ian Mason was asked by his GP whether he wanted to take a DNA test to contribute to medical research as they were trying to build a database to help create a test which can predict who will get prostate cancer. The 66-year-old consultant veterinarian had no symptoms and no-one in his family had had the disease to his knowledge so he agreed to take part.
Ian told the Mirror : “The practice contacted me to ask if I was willing to take part to help them with their genetic profiling. I had no symptoms and I went into the trial thinking I would be one of the negatives and they would need that. So I was surprised a couple of weeks later when they told me I was in the top 10% for prostate cancer risk. I must admit at this point I thought they had got it wrong because I had no symptoms and no-one in my family had ever had prostate cancer.”
Ian was trialling an early incarnation of the PRODICT saliva test which the Mirror revealed on Sunday has been hailed as the “the holy grail for the future of healthcare”. Health Secretary Wes Streeting is funding a further three-year trial of the at-home spit test which could be offered on the NHS to all men over 40 in as little as five years. The researchers behind it say, if successful, it could then be expanded to other cancers, particularly breast cancer.
Between one in four and one in five men are at greater risk of prostate cancer during their lifetime. Identifying these men could transform survival chances from the disease which claims more than 12,000 lives a year – one every 45 minutes.
After Ian was flagged as one of those men at risk in the previous trial, he was fast tracked for regular prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood tests and MRI scans for a few years. Then in March this year his PSA returned a high result. A further scan and biopsy confirmed that he had developed prostate cancer.
Ian, from Faringdon in Oxfordshire, underwent an operation to remove the tumour at Royal Marsden Hospital in London. He said: “When they took the prostate out they said the tumour was pretty well contained and I’ve since had a PSA test and they said my levels were undetectable. Three months later I’m fit and well and I’m running the Oxford Half Marathon on Sunday. I’m so grateful to the Royal Marsden because they literally saved my life. Had I left this a year or two I would have had to have some pretty nasty treatments and risk not surviving.”
The latest stage of the trial by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), in partnership with the Royal Marsden NHS Trust, will see 1,000 men offered the at-home test by their GP. It looks for genetic variations in the DNA code with known links to prostate cancer and participants will post the test tube back so it can be sent off to be analysed at a laboratory and they will then be monitored for three years.
The best-ever test builds on the earlier design, which Ian trialled, to check for 400 genetic markers. Ian’s trial suggested it was already nearly twice as good at identifying prostate cancer than the existing PSA blood test alone. The PRODUCT test costs £400 which the scientists behind it insist is cheaper than an MRI scan. Currently the PSA test is not routinely offered to men because it produces too many false positives but it can be requested by those aged over 50 if they start experiencing symptoms.
Ian added: “I’ve had a lucky escape because had I not enrolled on this trial I would be walking around thinking I’m fine. That’s what is so remarkable about this DNA test. It’s fantastic to be able to predict cancers and it would be brilliant for public health.”
