The Prostate Net

10/31/2025

In a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, investigators reported the final 23-year analysis of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC), quantifying benefits, harms, and practice implications.

The 23-year ERSPC trial reveals that sustained, protocolized PSA testing lowers prostate cancer deaths and improves the benefit-to-harm ratio, supporting a shift toward risk-based, patient-centered screening strategies.

Long-term, protocolized PSA screening reduces deaths from prostate cancer but increases testing, biopsies, and diagnoses, many for low-risk disease. Shared decision-making should incorporate individual risk, baseline PSA levels, life expectancy, and personal values. Risk calculators and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) pathways can help decouple an elevated PSA from the need for immediate biopsy, while active surveillance can spare treatment for low-risk tumors.

The study noted that very low baseline or age-60 PSA strongly predicts lifetime risk, supporting longer intervals or screening cessation in low-risk men. Overall, targeted screening can preserve mortality benefits, lessen overdiagnosis and overtreatment, and better align care with what matters to patients.

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After 23 years of follow-up, the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) confirmed a 13% lower prostate cancer mortality with PSA testing and an improved harm–benefit ratio over time. Risk-based screening could sustain mortality gains while reducing overdiagnosis and unn...

10/28/2025

Men with suspected prostate cancer will be able to get a diagnosis from the NHS within a day under a new trial hailed as a potential “game changer”. Artificial intelligence will be used to interpret MRI scans for men suspected of having the disease, helping to spot lesions within minutes.

Under current best practice guidelines, patients with suspected prostate cancer should receive an MRI and biopsy within a week of an urgent GP referral, but waits can be longer depending on the capacity of radiologists.

"The AI tool could represent a further step change, saving men prolonged anxiety and the bother of hospital trips, while also increasing capacity for our hard-working NHS workforce."

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The trial will test 10,000 scans at up to 15 hospitals across the country and will be rolled out nationally if successful.

10/28/2025

Another result of the Trump attack on research.

Beijing wants to double down on advanced semiconductor technologies, artificial intelligence and basic research.

10/20/2025

Applications are now open for the Nature Awards Healthspan Accelerator.

Four carefully chosen applicants will each be awarded a $10,000 Nature Award and gain entry to our residential accelerator programme.

We are especially interested in passionate scientists early in their career leading the work alongside a seasoned PI.

Applications submital close on December 10th. For more information see:

Better science ➡ Better translation ➡ Better health

10/10/2025

Adoption of a plant-rich “planetary health diet” could prevent 40,000 early deaths a day across the world, according to a landmark report.

The planetary health diet (PHD) sets out how the world can simultaneously improve the health of people and the planet, and provide enough food for an expected global population of 9.6 billion people by 2050.

People in the US and Canada eat more than seven times the PHD’s recommended amount of red meat, while it is five times more in Europe and Latin America, and four times more in China.

2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet and 1 billion are undernourished, despite enough food being produced globally. The food system is also failing the 1 billion people living with obesity, the report said.

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Diet allows modest meat consumption and would also slash food-related climate emissions by half, says report by 70 leading experts from 35 countries

10/02/2025

"...the federal government has stopped non-essential operations. Science-agency staff members have been sent home, their research suspended. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) had planned to halt its in-house basic research and stop admitting new people to the NIH hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. If the shutdown lasts more than a few days, it will directly affect non-government researchers: both the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would stop awarding new grants."

We're going from bad to worse.

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03192-4?

President Trump’s budget office lays out guidelines for mass lay-offs across the federal government.

09/25/2025

The new federal tax law will strip 10 million Americans of their health insurance at a time when a large share of the country is already struggling with medical debt.

At the same time, recent studies estimate that as many as 100 million Americans owe about $220 billion in medical debt — that is, unpaid medical and dental bills stemming from inadequate coverage.

Recent federal policy changes have created significant gaps in the health care safety net. States, on their own, will not have the resources to fix them.

However, by centralizing financial assistance processes and regulating harmful practices by intermediaries, states have options to protect patients from falling into medical debt traps while also supporting health care infrastructure.

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States can protect patients from debt and reduce administrative burdens on hospitals by streamlining financial assistance processes and curbing predatory practices.

09/25/2025

The U.S. government has terminated grants funding work it considers to address “DEI,” conflating health equity research with efforts to change the composition and climate of the scientific workforce.

Listen to the interview with Dr. Nancy Krieger on the effects of structural racism on health and health care and the conflation of research on health equity with DEI work.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2508916

09/19/2025

We're starting to see some of the promised benefits of AI in real world situations!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02993-x?

A modified large language model called Delphi-2M analyses a person’s medical records and lifestyle to provide risk estimates for more than 1,000 diseases.

09/18/2025

Health care in the United States has long been in crisis, underperforming for all Americans. Quite simply, compared to our peer nations across the world, we spend the most and have the least to show for it — as illustrated by our lagging life expectancy and high rates of infant and maternal mortality and chronic disease.

Despite incredible advancements in science and technology, we fail the basic test of assuring that all people across our nation can live healthy lives, and can get the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford.

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Commonwealth Fund President Joseph R. Betancourt, M.D., lays out the Fund’s priorities and announces two new initiatives launching in 2026.

09/18/2025

While this article is focused on initiatives in LMICs, the problem still exists in the High Income Developed nations around the world.

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There is an urgent need for low- and middle-income countries to ensure equitable, affordable, and sustained access to tobacco-cessation medications at scale.

07/20/2025

A recent study by researchers from the Karolinska Institute investigated the effect of physical activity after a prostate cancer diagnosis on both overall and prostate cancer–specific mortality in a large cohort.

"There is consistent evidence linking increased physical activity to reduced all-cause mortality among cancer survivors, as well as reductions in breast and colon cancer–specific mortality. Among male cancer survivors, higher levels of physical activity have also been associated to both all-cause and cancer-specific mortality. Although increased physical activity was associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer in a recent meta-analysis, very little is known about the association between post-diagnosis physical activity and survival among patients with prostate cancer."

"In conclusion, our study confirms and further strengthens the results from previous studies indicating positive effects of physical activity on survival after a prostate cancer diagnosis. We found that higher levels of total MET-h/d from recreational physical activities and longer time spent walking/bicycling, performing household activities, and exercising were associated with lower overall mortality rates. In addition, longer time spent walking/bicycling and exercising was also seen to decrease prostate cancer–specific mortality rates."

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Abstract. Background: Few studies have investigated the association between post-diagnosis physical activity and mortality among men diagnosed with prostate cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of physical activity after a prostate cancer diagnosis on both overall and prostate...