Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron Reveals Cancer Diagnosis

Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has revealed that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

In an interview with The Times published on Sunday, Nov. 23, Cameron, 59, said he went in for a test for the disease at the urging of his wife, Samantha, who heard the founder of Soho House, Nick Jones, speaking about his diagnosis on the radio.

Cameron underwent a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test earlier this year. According to the Mayo Clinic, this test measures the amount of proteins associated with the disease in the blood.

The politician’s results were high, and he then underwent an MRI scan and a biopsy, which confirmed the diagnosis.

Cameron told The Times: “You always hope for the best. You have a high PSA score — that’s probably nothing.”

“You have an MRI scan with a few black marks on it. You think, ‘Ah, that’s probably OK.’ But when the biopsy comes back, and it says you have got prostate cancer. You always dread hearing those words,” he continued. “And then literally as they’re coming out of the doctor’s mouth, you’re thinking, ‘Oh, no, he’s going to say it. He’s going to say it. Oh God, he said it.’ ”

According to the outlet, Cameron then received focal therapy, which targets the area where the tumor is located using methods such as ultrasound waves to destroy cancer cells.

The Cleveland Clinic states that this process can keep healthy tissue intact and can have fewer side effects than radiation or surgery. Cancer that hasn’t spread outside the prostate and has a low risk of spreading is often treatable with focal therapy.

Cameron called on the current U.K. government to introduce a screening program to detect prostate cancer cases earlier, when treatment is more likely to be successful. Similar requests have been made by the British charity Prostate Cancer Research.

“I want to, as it were, come out. I want to add my name to the long list of people calling for a targeted screening [program],” he said.

“I don’t particularly like discussing my personal intimate health issues, but I feel I ought to,” the former prime minister continued. “Let’s be honest. Men are not very good at talking about their health. We tend to put things off.”

“I’ve got a platform. This is something we’ve really got to think about, talk about, and if necessary, act on,” Cameron added.

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Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in males in the U.K., with about 55,000 new cases every year, according to the BBC. The U.K. does not currently offer a screening program for the disease, as some have expressed concern about the accuracy of PSA tests.

“I know it’s not a slam dunk,” Cameron acknowledged. “There are respectable arguments against a screening program. You’ve always got to think how many cases do we discover and how many misdiagnoses are there and how many people will be treated unnecessarily. But it seems to me that quite a lot of things have changed over the last few years.”

“The circumstances are changing,” he added. “The arguments are changing, and so it’s a really good moment to have another look at this.”

Cameron resigned as both prime minister and a member of parliament in 2016. In 2023, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed him as foreign secretary, and he was also made a life peer and a member of the House of Lords.