With better health care and aging population men are living longer than ever before. This is now leading to more men developing prostate cancer and the number of men dying from prostate cancer now has overtaken women dying from breast cancer for the first time in the UK.

The figures also reflect advances in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Today the biggest cancer killers in the UK remain lung and bowel cancer, with prostate now in third place.

The latest figures from 2015 show there were 11,819 deaths from prostate cancer compared with 11,442 from breast cancer.

Gary Pettit was 43 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, five years ago, after a routine health check. He had no symptoms – the only thing abnormal was a high PSA when he had a routine blood test, which led to further tests and biopsies. He was operated shortly at the Royal Marsden in London and is now free of the disease.

Gary says recovering from the surgery took quite a while and there were some side-effects which he is still getting used to – but he is clear of cancer and keen to raise awareness among other men. “It is still a taboo subject with men. They get shy and embarrassed, but it’s so important to get checked out.”

Angela Culhane, chief executive of the charity Prostate Cancer UK, said the disease currently received half the funding and half the research that is devoted to breast cancer. She said developing better diagnostic tests that could be used as part of a nationwide screening programme would be a priority.

At present, there is no single, reliable test for prostate cancer – the PSA test, biopsies and physical examinations are all used.

Men with prostate cancer can also live for decades without symptoms or needing treatment because the disease often progresses very slowly.

What are the symptoms?
In the early stages there may be very few symptoms and because of its location most symptoms are linked to urination:

1. needing to urinate more often, especially at night
2. needing to run to the toilet
3. difficulty in starting to urinate
4. weak urine flow or taking a long time while urinating
5. feeling your bladder has not emptied fully

Men with male relatives who have had prostate cancer, black men and men over 50 are at higher risk of getting the disease.