Former Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken publicly for the first time about his secret battle with prostate cancer — a life-changing diagnosis he says he would never have discovered without his wife Samantha’s insistence on a GP check-up.
The 59-year-old Conservative peer revealed that Samantha had urged him to book an appointment earlier this year after she heard an emotional radio interview in which Soho House founder Nick Jones discussed his own struggle with the disease. Cameron said he agreed to the test “to keep her happy”, only to receive a PSA result that was “worryingly high”.
An MRI scan showed several dark patches that doctors initially played down, but Cameron recalled the moment his biopsy results shattered any sense of reassurance. He said he sat there thinking that hearing the words “you have prostate cancer” was something he had always dreaded — describing how, even before the doctor finished speaking, he was already panicking: “Oh no, he’s going to say it… he said it.”
Faced with a difficult decision, he chose to undergo focal therapy — a minimally invasive treatment that uses electrical pulses to destroy cancerous cells. A follow-up MRI confirmed the therapy had worked, and Cameron says he is now cancer-free.
Now, the former Prime Minister is publicly urging the Government to introduce targeted prostate cancer screening for men at highest risk. He said he wants to “come out” and add his name to calls from Prostate Cancer Research for a national approach focusing on those with a family history or specific genetic markers.
His intervention comes as the UK edges closer to its first NHS prostate cancer screening programme. The National Screening Committee is expected to make a landmark decision this week on whether to approve a targeted rollout — a move experts believe could save thousands of lives.
Prostate cancer remains the most common cancer in men, with around 63,000 diagnoses and 12,000 deaths each year in the UK. Long-running campaigns, including one led by the Daily Mail, have pushed for a screening system similar to those used for breast, bowel and cervical cancers.
Cameron, who led the UK from 2010 to 2016, said he hopes sharing his story will encourage others not to delay getting checked. He credits Samantha for “quite literally” pushing him into the appointment that may have saved his life.