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MRI scanners per capita

User
Posted 03 Jul 2026 at 20:05

My apologies if this has already been discussed on here, and I’ve missed it, but is the reluctance to introduce routine national screening for prostate cancer due to the availability of MRI scanners here in UK?

I saw some stats that in Germany for example, there are 35 MRI scanners per million people. The UK is way down the list of developed countries at 7 per million for NHS hospitals or 19 per million if you include private clinics too.

Surely the MRI is the best indicator of prostate cancer prior to an invasive biopsy. The NHS would not be able to cope with a national screening program due to availability of MRI scanners. In my opinion this is a national scandal.

User
Posted 04 Jul 2026 at 03:44
Yes this subject does come up from time to time, sometimes being discussed in great detail with arguments for and against national screening. As you are doubtless aware, it has been rejected again recently in the UK. It it were to be introduced in the UK, it would lead to more MRI scans and involve more MRI scanners, trained operators and analysts. This would be a problem for the NHS and would have to be introduced gradually so the NHS was not overwhelmed. However, the reason given for not adopting National Screening is because it would cause many men to go on a path for treatment that many would not need, causing unnecessary harm and overtreatment, overriding the argument that some men would be diagnosed late, thereby missing the advantage of early treatment.

You mention that Germany has many more MRI scanners per capita than the UK and having had my RT there, I know they also have had for a long time other advanced forms of radiation such as Proton Beam, Carbon Ion and more recently Focal Tulsa Pro. They also formulated the PSMA test which was later introduced into the UK. Therefore, they have been in a better position to diagnose and treat PCa. Yet notwithstanding this, they have not introduced National PCa Screening for men. Apart from the Chech Republic, no European country of more than a few million has introduced it as called for in the UK.

Barry
User
Posted 05 Jul 2026 at 18:13

Scanners is part of it, but there aren't enough radiologists for even the scanners we do have today, enough urologists, enough clinic rooms, enough CNS's/navigators, histopathologists, etc.

And there's no money - some people seemed to think no screening program would get approved unless it was cost-neutral. Given how expensive it is to treat men diagnosed late versus those diagnosed early, screening and diagnosing men earlier has lots of scope to make savings, which could pay for screening. This was the basis of PCR's response to the government, if the screening covered high risk groups (Black men and men with a family history).

On scanning and pathology, there have been several trials of using AI to analyse the results, and that is probably the way things will go given we're unlikely to ever have enough radiologists and hisopathologists.

 
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