First men invited to take part in TRANSFORM screening trial - the most ambitious prostate cancer trial in decadesÂ
Today, the first men will begin receiving letters from their GPs to join the ambitious £42 million TRANSFORM screening trial - the biggest prostate cancer screening study in a generation.
Led by researchers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London alongside co-investigators at UCL, Queen Mary University of London and the Institute of Cancer Research, the landmark trial aims to find a way to make diagnosis earlier, safer, and more effective.
Up to 300,000 men will be recruited to the trial, which will work out the best way to diagnose prostate cancer. It will test the most promising screening techniques available, including PSA blood tests, genetic spit tests and fast MRI scans, combined in ways that have never been tested before in a large-scale screening trial.
Our Trust is the first site to open, with patients from north west London being the first to be invited to participate. We are one of only a few centres who offer the full breadth of treatment options for men, ranging from active surveillance through to focal therapy using the latest state of the art technologies, as well as robotic prostatectomy and radiotherapy. This ensures that the right treatment is given for the right patient at the right time - something that is critical for screening to be successful.
More sites will open soon across the UK.
The trial will be delivered in partnership with the NHS through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which has committed £16 million. The charity Prostate Cancer UK has committed £26 million to the trial.
Providing the evidence behind screening
Prostate cancer remains the most common cancer in the UK without a screening programme. TRANSFORM’s opening comes as the UK National Screening Committee (NSC) is soon to announce its decision on whether current evidence supports the introduction of screening for prostate cancer in the UK.
TRANSFORM goes far beyond this existing evidence, testing new ways to diagnose the disease that could find the cancers that today’s methods miss. The trial will also quickly produce robust new information about the tests we currently use.
If the NSC decides there is insufficient evidence to recommend screening now, these early results could help shift the evidence in favour of screening in as little as two years.
Encouraging diversity to tackle inequalities
TRANSFORM has also been specifically designed to help tackle inequalities in prostate cancer research and care.
Black men are twice as likely to get prostate cancer and twice as likely to die from it. Yet historically too few Black men have been recruited into trials to generate reliable evidence of how effective screening would be for them.
To help address this, at least one in ten men invited to the trial will be Black, and the charity and trial team will work with Black community leaders and organisations to ensure good representation of Black men in the trial, to ensure that future evidence is informed by, and reliable for, the men who stand to get the most benefit from screening.
About the trial
It is not possible to volunteer for the trial, but anyone who receives a letter (men aged 50 to 74, or 45 to 74 for some groups known to have poorer outcomes, such as Black men) is strongly encouraged to take part.
Men will be invited directly by their GPs, so the trial mirrors how a future screening programme would operate.
Men recruited this week will form part of the initial 16,000 men taking part in stage one, which will test new techniques against the current NHS diagnostic pathway.
The approaches that prove most effective will then be tested in stage two - a much larger group of up to 300,000 men making it the biggest prostate cancer trial launched in more than two decades.
TRANSFORM will also allow the creation of the biggest ever bank of prostate cancer samples, images and data to power the development of new tests and treatments for decades into the future.
A game changing trial that could reshape prostate cancer care
Professor Hashim Ahmed is chief investigator of the TRANSFORM trial – he is Chair of Urology and a consultant urological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Professor of Urology and head of section, specialty surgery at Imperial College London. He has received support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).
He said:"TRANSFORM is truly game-changing. As the biggest and most ambitious trial I’ve ever been part of, the start of recruitment today marks a pivotal step towards getting the results men urgently need to make prostate cancer diagnosis safe and more effective so that we can unlock the potential of prostate cancer screening in the UK.
He continued: “Combining our world-class team of UK researchers, the latest screening techniques like fast MRI scans, PSA blood tests and genetic tests, we can find the best way to screen men for prostate cancer – minimising late diagnosis, saving more lives and doing so with fewer harms. Importantly, we’ve designed the study so that we can evaluate promising new tests as soon as they’re developed."
Paul Sayer, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018 and is now cancer free after treatment, said: “I feel a sense of real hope and relief at the launch of this trial. For too long I have watched men being diagnosed too late when the disease has progressed to advanced prostate cancer – and having to suffer the radical life changing treatments that go with this.
He continues: “As someone who owes his diagnosis, life and lifestyle to a simple PSA test, I can’t overstate how important this study could be. For years, men have been stuck in a kind of medical limbo: prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, yet there’s still no national screening programme. That’s left too many being diagnosed too late, and far too many others being treated aggressively for cancers that may never have caused them harm.
Paul added: “TRANSFORM could finally give us the evidence we need to change that. It is not just another research project — it feels like a turning point in the fight for earlier, smarter detection of prostate cancer. The results could reshape prostate cancer care forever, helping us target the right men, at the right time, with the right tests and treatments. As founder of the charity Prost8, I’ve long campaigned for change, and this study gives me confidence that change is coming.”
