In a study published by Loo et al published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings (2013) the authors studied 2630 patients with non visible haematuria. Only 1.9% had either bladder or renal cancer diagnosed. Age over 50 years and visible hematuria were the most reliable predictors of urothelial or renal cancer. Male sex and smoking history were also predictive of cancer.

Gaziano et al report the results of a large randomized controlled trial in JAMA (2012). They studied more than 14,000 men with a median follow-up of 11 years. The subjects were physicians older than 50 years of age at the time of enrollment with the aim of seeing whether cancers could be prevented. They reported that prostate cancer made up nearly half of the cancers diagnosed, and that there was no difference in the incidence of prostate cancer found between men taking placebo or those taking multivitamins. The incidence of colon cancer was also the same in both groups. However, overall, there were fewer total numbers of cancers, excluding prostate cancer, in the group that received the daily multivitamin. Side effects were few but not very major.

According to the charity Prostate Cancer UK, research into prostate cancer is poorly funded in the UK. Of all cancers, research into Leukaemia is best funded with £3903 spent per case diagnosed. Breast cancer, the most common female cancer, which has a similar death rate to prostate cancer, received more than double the annual research spend at £853 per breast cancer case diagnosed, compared to £417 for prostate cancer. Approximately 10,000 men die from prostate cancer every year in the UK.