Doctors welcome prostate cancer breakthrough as new high-precision blood test gives hope they will soon be able to screen for the disease

A new high-precision blood test for prostate cancer gives doctors hope that they will soon be able to screen for the disease.

Almost one in eight men in the UK will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lives, and the disease claims 12,000 lives each year – the same number as breast cancer.

However, there is no screening program as the current method, the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test, is notoriously unreliable – it misses cancer and leads to many “false positives”.

Now scientists say they have robust results from a study of nearly 1,000 men that show a new test that looks for prostate cancer cells in the blood is highly accurate.

Last night experts said the ‘Trublood’ test held ‘great promise’ to improve early detection of the disease.

Almost one in eight men in the UK will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lives, and the disease claims 12,000 lives each year – the same number as breast cancer. [File image]

British doctors worked to evaluate the test, which was developed by the Indian company Datar Cancer Genetics.

The results of the study, which examined their ability to detect cancer in 960 men, 160 of whom had known prostate cancer, were very encouraging.

It saw all 160 with the disease correctly, without misidentifying any of the 800 healthy men.

Researchers in India worked with Imperial College and Guy’s Hospital in London on the study, which was published in the journal Cancer Medicine.

Prostate Cancer UK, which supported the research, said: “These results are promising and suggest that it is possible to use this test to detect the cancer at all.”