Hosted at The Christie Hospital, Manchester, the Prostate Cancer Support Conference, supported by GFCT, brought together patients, clinicians, and community advocates for the cause. The event aimed to empower men with knowledge to make informed choices about PSA testing and prostate cancer treatment options. 

The day featured a diverse programme including insights from Graham Fulford MBE on PSA testing, a moving talk by Jo Mellor from Mentell on the theme of ‘Men, is it time to talk?’ and contributions from support groups such as Warrington Wolves and Maggie’s. Medical perspectives were shared by Dr. Israr Kahn, Dr. Steve Allen, and Professor Ken Muir, and sessions from Phil Ormesher and Susan Hart explored the role of community-led patient support.

A follow up from our founder, Graham:

“A big thank you to Phil and all the team at Prostate Cancer Support (PCS) for all their hard work in organising such an impactful event at The Christie Hospital on Saturday 17th May. There were some very emotional presentations from some deeply passionate people. It was great to be part of it.

I wanted to share a few reflections following the event:

Firstly, I forgot to mention during my presentation that reaching the milestone of over 340,000 PSA tests conducted across the country is a real team achievement. While we at GFCT are proud to provide the infrastructure to consolidate these results into one national system, it is the dedicated local support groups and community partners who carry out much of the testing on the ground who should be very proud to be a part of this achievement. A big thank you to you all.

Secondly, regarding the topic of supporting men in following up on "Red" test results: I want to emphasise that this initiative is in no way critical of the primary care health service. The NHS is full of committed, hard working GPs. Our aim is simply to support the system and fill the gaps. I do believe in this respect; however, it would be very useful to our GPs to be provided with a simple, up-to-date guide on recommended steps to take when presented with abnormal PSA test results.

Lastly, in the discussion around newer biomarker-based PSA tests (of which I am a personal advocate) I omitted a key point: In fairness to the suppliers of tests such as Stockholm3 and Proclarix, both of which I’m sure are very ethical organisations, these tests are not generally positioned as frontline test, due to cost. Instead, they are typically recommended for use in certain circumstances, typically within PSA ranges 1.5–10 or 2.0–20, depending on the test. Full details about these tests are available here.

Once again, thank you to everyone who contributed to making the day such a success.”

- Graham

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