The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) is today opening a public consultation on prostate cancer screening.
It is consulting on its 2025 review of updated evidence and a draft updated recommendation.
The UK NSC reviews evidence against detailed criteria to weigh up the balance of risks and benefits. It only recommends a screening programme if published peer-reviewed evidence shows that an end-to-end screening pathway, including diagnostic tests and treatment, would do more benefit than harm to the overall group of people who are invited.
The committee commissioned the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR) to develop the updated 2025 prostate cancer screening modelling study. The SCHARR report predicts the potential impact of various screening strategies, including population screening and targeted approaches aimed at high-risk groups including black men, men with a family history and men with a BRCA gene variation.
We have opened a 12-week public consultation period to ask individuals and organisations to provide feedback on this study and its conclusions, and on the draft recommendation below.
Draft recommendationThe UK NSC’s draft recommendation is to:
offer a targeted national prostate cancer screening programme to men with confirmed BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene variants every 2 years, from age 45 to age 61 not recommend population screening not recommend targeted screening of Black men not recommend targeted screening of men with family history collaborate with the Transform screening research trial team to: answer outstanding questions on screening effectiveness for black men and men with a family history – as soon as trial data becomes available await results of the study to develop and trial a more accurate test than PSA alone, to improve the balance of benefit and harm of screening How to respondTo take part in the consultation, download the consultation documents by clicking on the grey ‘View documents’ button on the UK NSC’s prostate cancer recommendation page. Then submit your response by clicking on the green ‘Submit comments’ button.
You can also access the consultation documents here:
modelling study narrative paper evidence review coversheet infographicThe deadline for responses is 11.59pm GMT on Friday 20 February 2026.
The UK NSC secretariat and SCHARR team will review the consultation responses to determine whether the model and literature review need amending. If no further work is required then final evidence reports and feedback from the consultation will go to the 26 March 2026 UK NSC meeting when members are expected to agree a final updated recommendation.
If the consultation responses identify a requirement to revisit the modelling and evidence summary, then it will be updated and considered by the UK NSC at the earliest possible opportunity.
About prostate cancerProstate cancer is the most common cancer in men, the second most common cause of cancer deaths in men (after lung cancer), and the most common cancer not to have a national screening programme.
Each year in the UK, there are about 55,000 new cases and 12,000 deaths from the disease.
The risk of getting prostate cancer increases with age. About 75% of prostate cancer deaths are in men aged 75 and over. The condition is very rare in men under 50.
Men may also be at higher risk if they:
have specific genetic variants are of black ethnic origin have a close relative, for example a brother or father, who has had prostate cancer, or a sister or mother, who has had breast or ovarian cancer PSA testing, screening and treatmentThe UK NSC does not currently recommend a national screening programme for prostate cancer.
Its previous evidence reviews found that the harms of screening outweighed the benefits due to:
high rates of false positive and false negative results from the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test, which is the usual first step to getting a prostate cancer diagnosis the difficulty of distinguishing between harmless, low risk prostate cancers and aggressive cancers that need treatment the overtreatment of prostate cancers that would not have gone on to cause harm the potential serious life-long side effects of treatment, including urinary incontinence, faecal incontinence and erectile dysfunction The 2025 modelling studyThe updated 2025 SCHARR model has been informed by published peer-review evidence, national databases, input from experts and patient representatives, and workshops attended by a wide range of stakeholders.
The model has been validated against data from 2 major, long-term, randomised controlled trials into the effectiveness and harms of using PSA testing to screen for prostate cancer: the Cluster Randomised Trial of PSA Testing for Prostate Cancer (CAP) and the European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC).
The model assumes the PSA test is the initial test for all screening strategies followed by further tests, such as an MRI scan and biopsy, if the PSA level is high. It assessed each screening strategy for a one-off screening test. If that looked likely to be effective, the researchers also modelled regular repeat screening test scenarios.
The TRANSFORM trialThe UK NSC welcomes last week’s announcement that the first men have been invited to join the TRANSFORM screening trial.
This randomised control trial, backed by £42 million of funding from Prostate Cancer UK and the government, will compare multiple screening options to each other and the current system.
The UK NSC worked with Prostate Cancer UK on the design of TRANSFORM. It will liaise closely with the trial team to get timely access to any trial data that might help fill evidence gaps and inform future modifications to the UK NSC’s prostate cancer screening recommendation.
Keep up to dateThe UK NSC blog provides up to date news from the UK NSC. You can register to receive updates direct to your inbox, so there is no need to keep checking for new articles. If you have any questions about this blog article, or about the work of the UK NSC, please email uknsc@dhsc.gov.uk.
seen at 16:38, 28 November in UK National Screening Committee.