I opened my prostate exam results live on air - this is why

28 March 2025, 09:54 | Updated: 28 March 2025, 10:59

Prostate health awareness: Nick Ferrari takes a PSA test

By Nick Ferrari

@NickFerrariLBC

News is a strange business.

One minute you're discussing the latest blistering incompetence displayed by some hapless Herbert of a politician who you wouldn't trust to fix your fences let alone your finances, the next you get a message from a long-standing friend.

This happened last week and the message read:" Grim news buddy. I knew you met him and liked him, Eddie Jordan has died overnight. Prostate cancer. He'd been ill for a bit."

During an ad break, a quick word with the producer: "Check with his agent or someone. We can only do this once all the family have been informed." And five minutes later LBC was the first news organisation in the UK to reveal the sad news.

By that time we had a "clip" (some audio) of him talking and that instantly likeable, supportive and affectionate voice was on the airwaves again.

As I repeated the news at the end of the clip, I suddenly realised. I'm closer to Eddie Jordan in age than I am to Ed Sheeran - and I'd let it go well over 18 months since my last prostate check.

It was time for action.

And as I signed up last year to be an Ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK, it seemed a golden opportunity to get the message out there.

Prostate cancer has now become the most common cancer in men in the UK and most common cancer in England. Data from the NHS shows around 1,000 men are diagnosed with the condition every week and more than 12,000 will die. But what is the ultimate tragedy is that if it is caught early, all experts agree it can be successfully treated in more cases than not.

So, why on earth is there such reluctance for men to be tested?

Actually, one reason is pretty straightforward and easy to put your err, 'finger' on. For many years, blokes had their prostates checked with, what was called "a digital examination" otherwise known to you and me as a finger inserted where they're not meant to go. It's an exit, not an ingress after all!

That's about as invasive as you can get - although I could go into detail about the time a doctor had to examine my penis, and as we handling my manhood uttered the immortal line: "My mother won't believe this - she listens to you every day!"

But back to other matters in hand - my prostate. And I was to discover how things have changed.

Because now, there is zero embarrassment and maximum effectiveness as the test is a PSA, Prostate Specific Antigen, which is  done by taking a small blood sample.

Thanks to the brilliant Professor Hashim Ahmed, Chair of Urology at Imperial College London, facilities were made available at the excellent Cromwell Hospital in West London and I was there earlier this week.

Following a brief and friendly chat and some relevant questions from the Professor it was time to get to the test - but after a few questions from me about testing.

Professor Ahmed is leading the Transform programme for Prostate Cancer UK which hopes to find the best way to diagnose prostate cancer early to enable a national screening programme to be put in place.

He said: "We discourage any kind of PSA testing below the age of 50 and above the age of 75 or 80, depending on how long you think you might live...if you have a family history of prostate or breast or ovarian cancer, or if you are of black ethnicity, then starting at the age of 45 might be useful".

Professor Ahmed went on to explain the importance of early diagnosis and the challenges that screening for prostate cancer presents given patients often do not have symptoms at the earlier stages.

"If we took 1,000 men off the street and, at the age of 50 to 79, looked at their prostates in detail, about three to 400 of those men would have tiny little bits of cancer in their prostate that they would never know about. It would just sit there. It would not grow, it would not spread and it would not shorten their lives. If you start to screen for prostate cancer, you have an increasing chance of finding those very low risk areas of cancer. The advantage on the flip side is that you could find those life-threatening cancers which are killing thousands of men every year", he said.

Then it was on to Tony, the expert nurse who would take the sample.

I'd wager most of you reading this have probably either had a blood sample taken or received an injection and as I am a blood donor I really didn't feel a thing. Perhaps the slightest and most insignificant "scratch" as Tony called it, is the most apt description.

Sticking plaster and jacket back on, that was it and I was told to expect a call the following morning.

Which duly came through. My test was well within the parameters set and pretty much spot on where a man of my age should be. The whole process at the hospital had taken between 5 and 10 minutes - but the assurance will last far longer.

Well, 12 months for sure.

And I vow not to rely on the death of someone I know to be the spur to drive me on.