Experts are calling for New Zealand's prostate cancer screening process to be updated as new research emerges from overseas.
A world-leading doctor has said hundreds of lives could be saved if an organised programme was introduced here.
Michael Jesson, 71, has a renewed outlook on life. Just a few years ago, he was told he had prostate cancer - despite having no symptoms.
"I just wanted it gone. And here I am - zero," Jesson said. "It's fantastic - I haven't got cancer!"
It's all thanks to a simple blood test that alerted his GP to early warning signs.
"You have to insist on having a test and you have to get on with this early - you can't leave it," Jesson told Newshub.
Like Jesson, most prostate cancer cases are asymptomatic when they're in the curable stages.
Peter Dickens from the Prostate Cancer Foundation said the PSA blood test is vital to detecting cancer early.
"Once symptoms appear, almost certainly, cancer has escaped the prostate gland," Dickens told Newshub.
In New Zealand, one in eight men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime. That's more than 4000 cases each year and at least 700 of those people will die from the disease.
Hendrik van Poppel is a world-leading expert in the early detection of the disease. He's based in Belgium and has more than 40 years of experience in the field.
"When you look at prostate cancer worldwide… New Zealand is indeed not doing very well,' said Dr van Poppel, the chair of the European Urology Association's (EUA) policy office.
Currently, New Zealand uses opportunistic screening as a way to detect the disease. It's common practice across many other countries.
It's when a GP chooses to issue a PSA blood test or a patient asks for one.
But Dr van Poppel said the EUA no longer supports that method.
"There is no difference. There is no improvement in prostate cancer mortality.
"If you do opportunistic screening, you continue to have the major negative points of screening - that's overdiagnosis and overtreatment."
He said an organised nationwide screening programme for 50-70-year-old males is needed to dramatically drop New Zealand's death rates.
"At 20 years, there will be around 50 percent reduction in prostate cancer mortality."
That's at least 300 lives that could be saved each year.
Dr van Poppel and his colleagues have made recommendations to the EU.
He's hopeful the EU guidelines will be updated to include the need for structured organised testing for prostate cancer as early as December.
"The new science, the new analysis, there are studies that have been going for over 20 years now and they're unequivocal about the benefits of PSA tests in the early detection of cancer and really, the authorities need to take another look at this," Dickens said.
Because you just need to take a look at Jesson to see the difference it can make.
"If I can get a guy - just one guy in New Zealand to go get tested - that's amazing," Jesson said.
