Sir Chris Hoy: Former Olympic gold medallist calls for prostate cancer screening age to be lowered

Sir Chris Hoy has claimed “potentially millions of lives” can be saved if the screening age for prostate cancer is lowered.

The six-time Olympic cycling champion revealed last month in a Sunday Times interview that his cancer is terminal after he first made public in February that he was undergoing treatment, including chemotherapy.

A tumour was found in Hoy’s shoulder and a second scan found primary cancer in his prostate, which has metastasised to his bones.

During a BBC documentary titled ‘Sir Chris Hoy: Finding Hope’ to be broadcast on Tuesday, the 48-year-old called for a change to the current screening in England.

The NHS has no national screening program for prostate cancer, but men aged 50 and over can ask their GP for a free prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test.

“I believe that the screening for men with a strong family history of prostate cancer, should be a lot younger, a lot,” Hoy said. “It’s logical to me why would you not just get the test a little bit earlier, catch it before you need to have any major treatment? So to me it seems a no brainer.

“Why would they not reduce the age, bring the age down, allow more men to just go in and get a blood test?”

Asked if that was something he could change, Hoy replied: “I hope so.

“I hope, well maybe not, maybe people seeing this or hearing about my story and then just by them asking their GP will create enough of a surge of interest, that people that make the decisions will go ‘you know what, we need to address this’.

“And in the long term this will actually, even from a logistical point of view would save potentially millions of lives in the long term. And why wouldn’t you, you know, why wouldn’t you?!”

‘Toughest year of our lives’

In February, as he was undergoing treatment, including chemotherapy, Hoy said he felt “forced” to reveal his cancer diagnosis publicly. At that time, Hoy said he was “going really well” and was “optimistic, positive and surrounded by love for which I’m truly grateful” after his diagnosis in 2023.

“It’s been the toughest year of our lives so far by some stretch,” Hoy added to the BBC. “I’d had zero symptoms, nothing to point me towards that that might be an issue. We were given the news that this was incurable.

“Suddenly, everything, all your thoughts, everything rushes. It’s almost like your life is flashing before your eyes in that moment.

“It does feel like this isn’t real. You feel that you want to get out, you feel like you’re a caged animal, you want to get out of that consulting room and get away from the hospital and run away from it all.

“But you realise you can’t outrun this, this is within you and this is just the first step of the process of acceptance.”