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Two unpublished conference abstracts presented at the European Association of Urology Congress look at risk stratification of prostate cancer and a new biomarker test.
Simon Grieveson, Assistant Director of Research at Prostate Cancer UK, said:
Commenting on the abstract relating to risk stratification of prostate cancer:
“Men desperately need a screening programme for prostate cancer, and it’s helpful to see findings from international studies which are exploring how screening programmes can be delivered effectively in the community.
“An important consideration is how we can most effectively identify the men with prostate cancer whilst safely and efficiently ruling out a cancer diagnosis in others. These findings from the PRAISE-U study suggest a potential way to reduce the number of men needing an MRI, however this would require a trans-rectal ultrasound test which we know can be a major barrier for many, and could even put men off talking to their GP about prostate cancer.
“Prostate Cancer UK’s £42m TRANSFORM trial is designed to produce the definitive evidence needed to create a safe, effective and acceptable screening programme for all men and is adaptable to be able to incorporate learnings, including from the PRAISE-U study as well as others discussed at this weekend’s conference.”
Commenting on the abstract on a new biomarker test for prostate cancer:
“Men are desperately in need of a prostate cancer screening programme, and in order to build one that saves lives while making sure men get the right diagnosis and appropriate treatments, we need to find the best tests. The Stockholm3 test has shown great potential in supporting the early detection of prostate cancer, and these recent findings suggest that this test could help rule out a cancer diagnosis and reduce the number of men who need an MRI scan. However, an important consideration is just how deliverable and affordable novel tests like these are, which can cost several hundreds of pounds each. It is also not yet evident that a Stockholm3 test will give a more accurate diagnosis than the current PSA test followed by an MRI scan, but it does cost more.
“The great news is that the way men are diagnosed in the UK is now safer and more accurate than it’s ever been, thanks to the introduction of routine MRI scans on the NHS since 2019. What’s more, research funded by Prostate Cancer UK and the John Black Charitable Foundation shows that fast MRI scans can diagnose prostate cancer as accurately as mpMRI scans. This could soon drop the cost of MRI scans to less than £150 each.
“Prostate Cancer UK’s £42m TRANSFORM trial is designed to produce the definitive evidence needed to create a safe and effective screening programme for all men and is able to incorporate new approaches and tests as they emerge, including some of those discussed this weekend.”
Dr Alastair Lamb, Senior Clinical Lecturer, Barts Cancer Institute, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, said:
Commenting on the abstract relating to risk stratification of prostate cancer:
“It’s a commendable aspiration to minimise the number of men proceeding to costly MRI and subsequent invasive investigations, if population-level PSA screening were introduced. Some form of risk stratification is clearly needed. But I suspect most men will balk at rectal examination, as proposed here, preferring the non-invasive option of MRI. We await the peer-reviewed PRAISE-U results in due course.”
Commenting on the abstract on a new biomarker test for prostate cancer:
“Another study trying to minimise the number of costly MRI scans if population-level PSA screening were to be introduced. It seems that using the STHLM-3 test may achieve this but the study also highlights the difficulty of doing meaningful population screening studies with only 37 cancers diagnosed out of 48,357 men invited for screening! It’s hard to know from this data what impact this approach would actually have on life expectancy or quality of life.”
Dr Lennard Lee, Associate Professor, University of Oxford, said:
Commenting on the abstract relating to risk stratification of prostate cancer:
“Many countries around the world run organised screening programmes for prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men. The UK has taken a different approach and has rejected population screening since their first national review in 1997.
“Studies like PRAISE-U are interesting because they show how other countries are trying to refine screening systems by adding risk-stratification tools alongside PSA testing. The early data suggest that combining PSA with risk calculators or PSA-density may reduce the number of men referred for MRI scans.
“However, the findings come from conference abstracts. We still need to see the full peer-reviewed data before drawing firm conclusions. It is also worth noting that some of the proposed approaches rely on prostate ultrasound measurements, including transrectal ultrasound, which some patients may find uncomfortable or invasive. So while the results are promising, they represent one step in the ongoing global effort to make prostate cancer screening more precise.”
Commenting on the abstract on a new biomarker test for prostate cancer:
“The Stockholm3 study reflects a broader international effort to improve prostate cancer screening programmes in other European countries by combining PSA testing with additional biomarkers and clinical information. The early findings suggest that this approach could reduce unnecessary MRI scans and biopsies while still identifying men at risk of more aggressive cancers.
“This is encouraging work, and it highlights that other countries are leading in prostate cancer screening and actively testing new and better screening strategies. However, these are conference data and the full evidence base will need careful evaluation once the results are fully published and peer reviewed.
“Another important question is health economics. PSA testing is cheap and widely available. More complex biomarker tests such as Stockholm3 may add additional cost to screening programmes. Understanding whether these approaches remain cost-effective at population scale will be important before they could realistically be implemented in countries where prostate cancer screening is funded.”
Abstract 1: ‘Pre-MRI risk stratification in a population-based PCa screening setting: first results of the PRAISE-U initiative’ by M.J van Harten et al. was presented at the European Association of Urology Congress at 00:01 UK time Thursday 12 March 2026.
Abstract 2: ‘Stockholm3 Test Performance for Reducing MRI in Organised Prostate Cancer Testing (OPT) by U.G Falagario et al. will be presented at the European Association of Urology Congress at 00:01 UK time Thursday 12 March 2026.
Declared interests
Dr Lennard Lee: Dr Lennard Lee is an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford and a medical oncologist. Comments provided in a personal academic capacity.
For all other experts, no response to our request for DOIs was received.