Prof Brian O'Neill

So the general advice is that at the age of 50, if there's no risk factors, it is very useful to have a discussion with your GP about prostate cancer, whether or not you should get the prostate blood test, call it PSA, or not, whether that's right for you.

If there's risk factors, we said that conversation should happen between the ages of 40 and 45.

Well, it's probably a good thing.

Prostate cancer screening, population screening, is actually quite controversial.

The difficulty with screening large numbers of men, there's been a number of trials in this area,

is that you pick up lots of guys with very low-grade disease, and that can lead to over-diagnosis and over-treatment, and that can have significant side effects on young men.

On the other hand, you can pick up important cancers by PSA screening.

So the advice remains to have that conversation at the appropriate age.

Well, the examination, you know, does take 30 seconds.

So while it's not something people relish, it is a simple test.

But the blood test, the problem with the blood test, it is very sensitive to picking up significant prostate cancer.

But other things can raise it, like your age, an enlarging prostate, an infection, even an examination raises it.

So it's not the most reliable thing.

There are some new ways of looking for prostate cancer coming that are probably a little bit better.

So there's an exciting development from the Royal Marsden Hospital in the UK.

So it's a saliva test.

And a saliva test is a quick way of getting a DNA test.

This has been used in a number of areas throughout cancer.

But you can get a man's inherited risk

and measure it against the population.