News Beat
Guisborough man urges men to get PSA test after almost dying
Andy King, 58, a retired police officer from Guisborough, lost a friend to prostate cancer just six weeks after they were first diagnosed and decided he wanted to get checked himself.
Tests done when he was 50 had already confirmed he had a slightly enlarged prostate.
With an annual review booked on December 11, 2024, Andy persuaded the nurse to do a PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) test – a blood test that helps check for prostate conditions.
His result came back as 3.8 PSA – which is above the threshold for his age – but as he had been physically active the night before, which can affect results, a new test was done weeks later which came back at 3.5 PSA – the threshold limit.
He was told he was fine but wanted to be sure.
Andy requested an MRI but was initially refused as he didn’t fit the criteria of not having other symptoms or family history for referral.
Eventually he managed to convince the hospital to do it, and two shadows were found on his prostate.
A biopsy in March confirmed that 10 per cent of cancer cells across both tumours had the ability to spread whilst the other 90 were low risk.
Andy said: “Emotionally it knocks you for six, but when someone tells you that you have cancer you just want it out of you.
“The surgeon said had my colleague not died and not having my sheer persistence, it could have been a different outcome in the future.
“I was the fittest person in the last 10 years – yet I had two silent killers in me.”
Andy was so persistent throughout, that he even told doctors he would pay to have everything done privately if they wouldn’t do it.
He said: “I said I’d pay privately if they couldn’t do it.
“There’s an opportunity to see whether I have cancer or not.”
After diagnosis, he instantly chose to have his prostate removed over radiotherapy and thankfully surgeons were able to remove and freeze his prostate – containing all the cancer cells within.
Now in remission, Andy is warning other men to get checked after his surgeon said his friend saved his life.
He said he had explored the idea of brachytherapy – which involves placing radioactive material inside or near a tumour to destroy cells but ultimately decided against it because of the locations of his tumours.
He added: “I mentioned brachytherapy and I paid privately for a referral to see if I needed it but decided against as it was only a possibility they could get access to it because of the locations of tumours.
“So I decided to go for full removal. The queue was massive at James Cook Hospital, and I asked them to send me to any hospital in country and luckily they sent me only 60 miles away to another hospital and I had it removed.
“The prostate’s gone, they froze it and my cancer was still all contained within the prostate. So, I didn’t require radiotherapy or chemo.”
Andy’s surgeon told him he wants all people over the age of 50 to be screened.
“Every year I go along for my annual review for blood pressure and I get everything checked,” he said.
“There should be standards in place for that. You could set up in a system of risk – high risk to low as long as guidelines are followed.
“I’ve got a chance at a second life and I’m fit now.”
