Many men's lives could be saved if a national screening programme for prostate cancer was set up, an expert on the disease said yesterday.
Dr Ted McDermott, a consultant urologist at Tallaght Hospital in Dublin, said the results of a one-off screening experiment carried out by the hospital showed an urgent need for the same approach to be adopted to the condition as had already been applied to breast cancer.
There were 1,150 new cases of prostate cancer and 513 deaths from the disease in 1998, the most recent year for which figures are available.
In the same year there were 1,781 cases of breast cancer in women.
"A lot of money is being put into breast cancer at the moment. If we can take just a fraction of that and put it into prostate cancer, we could save lives," Dr McDermott told RTÉ news.
The screening experiment was carried out at AIB Bank headquarters in Dublin where blood tests and physical examinations were offered over a period last year.
More than 700 men were tested, the majority of whom had limited knowledge of prostate cancer and had never checked for it or for testicular cancer.
Several cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed among the men and several others showed indications of developing the disease in the future.
"Screening is a costly option so you would have to look at the efficacy of such a programme and its acceptability to men," said the Irish Cancer Society's director of nursing services, Ms Joan Kelly.
A pilot project to identify how best a national programme could run would be welcome, she said.
A support group, Men Against Cancer, which provides information and support for patients with prostate and testicular cancer, can be contacted through the Irish Cancer Society at 1800 200 700.