laser, obviously minute later, that goes into your artery and it lasers the plaque and a goes to nothing. i thank them so much because they have given me my life back. you re live with bbc news. researchers say using mri scans to screen men for prostate cancer could reduce deaths significantly . prostate cancer is the most common cancerfound in men and is highly treatable if caught early, but in the uk 12,000 men die every year. the uk s death rate is twice as high as the us, spain or italy. mri scans have been found to be more effective than the current blood tests, which can be unreliable. it s hoped thousands of lives could be saved. our medical editor, fergus walsh, has been finding out more. paul rothwell s prostate cancer was caught early and successfully treated. it was diagnosed here at london s university college hospital when he took part in a trial
using mri scans. the 62 year old s cancer would have been missed if he d only had the standard psa blood test, which came back as normal. if ijust had the blood test, i would be carrying on life as normal, walking around unaware that there was some sort of ticking time bomb inside me of a cancer slowly growing. so by the time i then did find out, presumably it would have been much harder to treat, and much more dangerous to me. so you feel fortunate? yeah, very fortunate. i m, you know, thrilled that i was diagnosed so early. we don t see any sign of cancer recurrence there. paul was among 300 men aged 50 to 75 who took part in the trial led by university college london. of the 25 men whose aggressive cancers were picked up via mri, over half like paul had negative blood tests. we think these are really significant results. what we see is that a short ten minute mri scan used as a screening test can selectively
discounts on their mot if they got themselves checked out. and he now runs a charity to raise awareness of the disease. when prostate cancer turns up at your front door, it doesn t care, right, whether you re black, whether you re white. it doesn t care about your wealth. it doesn t care about you. what it will do if you ignore it, it will kill you. 0k, paul. nice and still. larger trials will be needed to confirm the value of mri scans before a national screening programme for prostate cancer could be set up which may take up to a decade. fergus walsh, bbc news. the us president, joe biden, has visited the hawaiian island of maui and offered government support following the deadly wildfires there. nearly two weeks after the disaster which has killed at least 114 people, he s named a federal response co ordinator and says the island s critical infrastructure
you re at even higher risk. currently, men over 50 can request a blood test, which looks for high levels of a protein called psa. this can indicate a problem with your prostate, but the mri scans were able to pick up serious cancers which would have been missed by psa alone. our medical editor fergus walsh reports. paul rothwell s prostate cancer was caught early and successfully treated. it was diagnosed here at london s university college hospital, when he took part in a trial using mri scans. the 62 year old s cancer would have been missed if he d only had the standard psa blood test, which came back as normal. if ijust had the blood test, i would be carrying on life as normal, walking around unaware that there was some sort of ticking time bomb inside me of a cancer slowly growing. so by the time i then did find out,
presumably, it would have been much harder to treat and much more dangerous to me. so you feel fortunate? yeah, very fortunate. you know, thrilled that i was diagnosed so early. we don t see any sign of cancer recurrence there, so. paul was among 300 men aged 50 to 75 who took part in the trial, led by university college london. of the 25 men whose aggressive cancers were picked up via mri, over half, like paul, had negative blood tests. we think these are really significant results. what we see is that a short, ten minute mri scan, used as a screening test, can selectively pick up significant cancers in a much more effective way than the psa blood test alone. that ll help us to diagnose the important cancers early, when they re curable. the prostate is a walnut sized gland, which sits below the bladder. it s the uk s most common male cancer, with 52,000 new diagnoses every year.