Mass screening is imminent, thanks to a new blood test called NMP48
A new blood test for the detection of prostate cancer, called NMP48, which could be available from early next year, has brought the prospect of mass screening for the disease closer.
The prostate cancer management program, a series of Government measures developed to promote screening, has been held back by the fact the current test, the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is not very accurate.
Nick Kirwan, chairman of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) critical illness (CI) working party, explained: 'It is a test that is much more accurate than the PSA test, which gives more false positives than real positives. A political hurdle to screening has been that on a national scale you would frighten a lot of men without cancer. This is one of the key things needed to make mass screening for the cancer a viable proposition.'
The news comes as the ABI published a revised statement of best practice for CI cover. The statement aims to help consumers understand and compare policies through standardisation and improved clarity. The revised statement includes a new cancer definition to ensure that critical illness cover remains affordable in the light of the Government's prostate cancer management program.
Kirwan said: 'The key now is for insurers to decide what they are going to do about prostate cancer. The ABI definitions are about minimum standards and therefore people can continue to cover full prostate cancer if they want to, but in the long term those policies are going to be more expensive.' Compliance with the statement is a condition of membership of the ABI and insurers have until the end of May 2003 to adopt the changes.
The way the new definition is worded is that if a client were to contract a low grade, microscopic tumour, and it were to progress to become a more serious tumour then, it would become covered under a critical illness policy. The new definition does not mean that the disease will never be covered it means it is not covered from absolutely any point in its progression.
• 'A Guide to Critical Illness Cover' is available on the ABI's website at www.abi.org.uk
