Minister Of Health Needs To Accept European Invitation To Join Useful World Leading Cancer Study

“Our new Health Minister should take immediate action for men's health on two fronts - he should accept this invitation from Europe, and he should put the minuscule funding into the proposed early detection pilots in the next budget,” Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand President Danny Bedingfield said today.

This follows Europe inviting New Zealand to join the Praise-U consortium, a partnership of institutions from 12 European countries which is co-funded by the European Union. This is a world-leading initiative that aims to enhance the ability for early detection of men with prostate cancer so they can access early treatment to reduce unnecessary early deaths.

Prostate cancer kills over 700 men a year in New Zealand. The Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand says the invitation is significant and useful to men’s health. Mr Bedingfield strongly urges the Government to accept.

“Everyone agrees that early detection of cancer leads to better clinical outcomes and saves lives, so why are we not focussing on this with prostate cancer? It makes no sense. We also know that later detection costs the health system more as well. It's a win-win – fewer lives lost unnecessarily, and less cost.

The Foundation recently meet with Health Minister Simeon Brown to seek an initial investment of only $1.6 million a year ($6.4 million over four years) out of the government’s circa $30 billion annual health budget to establish a prostate cancer screening pilot in Waitematā and Tairāwhiti. Lessons learned would support an eventual national screening programme. An NZIER report shows that the return on this investment is compelling. It compares very well on a value of money basis to some other health interventions.

Now, in a letter to the Health Minister, Foundation President Danny Bedingfield says joining Praise-U would further assist New Zealand on the pathway to reducing prostate morbidity and mortality in an international context.

“Let’s be clear - starting a New Zealand based pilot, which can now be joined into and leverage off this world leading European initiative, will help prevent our men from dying unnecessarily early. And save precious dollars in the health budget!

“New Zealand could learn the lessons from the first two years of Praise-U and share and improve our and Europe’s data. This would help us find earlier, and more successfully treat, prostate cancer,” Bedingfield says.

Joining Praise-U would also show New Zealand is a world leader in promoting solutions to men’s health and is collaborating internationally.

At the request of the Health Select Committee, the Foundation presented evidence on the benefits of early risk-based screening using the Praise-U model. The Foundation urged the influential committee of MPs to encourage the Minister to sign off the modest spending on two prostate cancer pilots which would feed data to Praise-U.

Bedingfield told the committee there was currently little progress being made on organised early detection of prostate cancer, especially when compared to screening programmes for cervical, breast and bowel cancer.

Prostate cancer is New Zealand’s most diagnosed internal cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer death in men behind lung cancer but ahead of bowel cancer.

“New Zealand must actively begin to take steps to tackle prostate cancer if we are to avoid the loss of countless New Zealanders before their time,” Bedingfield says.

In the invitation from Praise-U, coordinator Professor Dr Hein Van Poppel said Praise-U was initially intended to cover only five European pilot sites in Ireland, Lithuania, Poland and two in Spain, but was evolving to a worldwide learning study on screening of prostate cancer.

“New Zealand can learn the vital lessons specific to its own population of at-risk men that can only be learned from pilots in New Zealand, while simultaneously benefitting from and contributing to the knowledge and understanding gathered at the wider community of sites,” van Poppel said.

While optimistic that common sense would see New Zealand accept the invitation, Bedingfield said he would be gutted if it was turned down.

“This and previous governments have shown a great reluctance to support early detection of prostate cancer but joining Praise-U will be a game changer, as it will demonstrate that we are serious about saving our husbands, sons, fathers and friends from succumbing to this deadly disease.

“Our new Health Minister should take action for men's health. There is simply no downside,” Mr Beddingfield concluded.

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