David Cameron Reveals Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
Former prime minister David Cameron has revealed that he has been treated for prostate cancer, saying he felt he “ought to” share his story to help to push for better screening for men at higher risk of getting the cancer.
Cameron, 59, said his wife Samantha urged him to get checked after hearing Nick Jones speak on the radio about his own diagnosis. Cameron booked a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, which showed unusually high levels, leading to an MRI scan, a biopsy and eventually focal therapy. The treatment targeted the tumour using focused energy, and doctors now consider him cancer-free.
He said hearing the diagnosis was a moment everyone dreads, recalling that he was thinking: “Oh, no, he's going to say it. He's going to say it. Oh God, he said it.” Cameron explained that his older brother died from pancreatic cancer at the same age he is now, adding that it “focuses the mind” and made the decision to move forward with treatment clearer.
Cameron joked that his post-treatment scan happened the same week as US officials analysed damage at a nuclear plant in Iran after a US bomb had hit it, saying he got his own “bomb damage assessment.” But most of his message was serious: he wants men to talk more openly about their health and push past embarrassment. “Men are not very good at talking about their health. We tend to put things off,” he said. “I would feel bad if I didn’t come forward and say that I’ve had this experience. I had a scan. It helped me discover something that was wrong. It gave me the chance to deal with it.”
He’s now backing calls from Prostate Cancer Research and other charities for targeted screening, noting that high-risk groups still aren’t routinely checked. Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in the UK, and more than 12,000 men die from it each year.
Cameron’s announcement comes just as thousands of men are being invited to join a major trial comparing promising screening methods with current NHS practices. The Transform project, funded by the NIHR and Prostate Cancer UK, aims to find a more accurate approach than today’s PSA testing, which can miss cancers or flag ones that never needed treatment.
With the National Screening Committee preparing to deliver a key decision on prostate cancer screening, Cameron said this is the moment to act: “I’ve got a platform. This is something we’ve really got to think about, talk about, and if necessary, act on.”
