MORE men in South Yorkshire were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2022 – prompting charities to urge locals to get regularly checked.

The latest figures from NHS England show there were 1,370 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2022 – a 33 per cent increase on the year before.

Prostate Cancer UK said the data vindicates its campaign to find the ‘missing men’ not getting checked, but warned many were still being diagnosed too late.

Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at the charity, said there was a ‘huge drop’ in men getting tested for prostate cancer during the pandemic.

She added: “By early 2022, there were over 14,000 men missing a prostate cancer diagnosis.

“To find these ‘missing men’, we launched a major campaign with the NHS in 2022, and created our online risk checker which enables men to quickly find out their risk of getting prostate cancer and what they can do about it.

“At the time we saw record-breaking numbers of referrals with suspected cancer, and this data confirms the effectiveness of that campaign.”

Prostate Cancer UK is also calling on the government to update NHS guidelines that prevent GPs from proactively talking to men most at risk about their options – a move it says could save thousands of lives a year.