Sir Chris Hoy has claimed “potentially millions of lives” can be saved if the screening age for prostate cancer is lowered. The six-time Olympic cycling champion revealed last month in a Sunday Times interview that his cancer is terminal after he first made public in February that he was undergoing treatment, including chemotherapy.
A tumour was found in Hoy’s shoulder and a second scan found primary cancer in his prostate, which has metastasised to his bones. During a BBC documentary titled ‘Sir Chris Hoy: Finding Hope’ to be broadcast on Tuesday, the 48-year-old called for a change to the current screening in England.
The NHS has no national screening program for prostate cancer, but men aged 50 and over can ask their GP for a free prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. “I believe that the screening for men with a strong family history of prostate cancer, should be a lot younger, a lot,” Hoy said.
“It’s logical to me why would you not just get the test a little bit earlier, catch it before you need to have any major treatment? So to me it seems a no brainer. Why would they not reduce the age, bring the age down, allow more men to just go in and get a blood test?”
Asked if that was something he could change, Hoy replied: “I hope so. I hope, well maybe not, maybe people seeing this or hearing about my story and then just by them asking their GP will create enough of a surge of interest, that people that make the decisions will go ‘you know what, we need to address this’.
“And in the long term this will actually, even from a logistical point of view would save potentially millions of lives in the long term. And why wouldn’t you, you know, why wouldn’t you?!”