Restaurant critic Giles Coren, 55, reveals he has prostate cancer
The restaurant critic Giles Coren has revealed he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Writing in the Times, Coren said he had been told the tumour would need monitoring but 'no treatment would be necessary for the moment'.
In his column, the 55-year-old recounted a call from a urology nurse on Wednesday explaining that 'some cancer' had been found in a biopsy of tissue samples recently taken from his prostate, 'but less than a millimetre in just three of the 21 samples'..
His Gleason score – a commonly used grading system for prostate cancer – was 'the lowest possible rating for a malign tumour', he wrote.
Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in England, Prostate Cancer UK reported earlier this week. There were 55,033 diagnoses of the disease in 2023, compared with 47,526 for breast cancer.
Coren's urologist urged him to have the biopsy taken after Coren requested a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test from his GP a couple of years ago, along with his annual cholesterol check, and discovered his PSA level was raised.
The NHS offers PSA tests to men aged 50 and over who request them, while men who have a family history of prostate cancer can speak with their GP about having a test from the age of 45.
Coren wrote: 'I had only asked for the test because such good work has been done lately to raise awareness, by people like Stephen Fry and Bill Turnbull – and latterly poor Chris Hoy – and now here I was with a score of four, where higher than 2.5 is considered abnormal and facing imminent death.'
This assertion was refuted by his GP, who told him: 'It's not imminent death. All men get it, if they live long enough. It's a slow cancer. Most men die with it, not of it. And a raised PSA doesn't necessarily mean cancer anyway.'
Coren, an award-winning food and drink writer, has appeared on BBC shows including The Supersizers, Our Food and the F-Word with Gordon Ramsay. He has been writing for the Times since 2002.
He is the son of the English journalist and humourist Alan Coren and the elder brother of Victoria Coren Mitchell.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Western Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
NHS waiting list for planned treatment falls to lowest level in two years
An estimated 7.39 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of April, relating to 6.23 million patients – down from 7.42 million treatments and 6.25 million patients at the end of March. These are the lowest figures since March 2023 for treatments and April 2023 for patients. The news comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves gave the NHS a cash injection worth an extra £29 billion per year. This is just the start. We've delivered millions of extra appointments since July, we are pushing on with our mission to get the NHS working for patients once again Health Secretary, Wes Streeting Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: 'We are putting the NHS on the road to recovery after years of soaring waiting times, by providing record investment and fundamental NHS reform. 'Thanks to our interventions and the hard work of NHS staff, the overall waiting list has now fallen in April for the first time in 17 years – dropping by almost a quarter of a million since we took office. 'This is just the start. We've delivered millions of extra appointments since July, we are pushing on with our mission to get the NHS working for patients once again as we deliver our Plan for Change.' Within the new NHS figures, the number of longer waits has grown. Some 1,361 patients in England had been waiting more than 18 months to start routine treatment at the end of April, up from 1,164 in March. There were 9,258 patients who had been waiting more than 65 weeks to start treatment, up from 7,381 the previous month. This is just the start of the work we're doing to reform care and deliver improvements for patients Meghana Pandit, NHS England Overall, 190,068 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment, up from 180,242 at the end of March. The figure had previously fallen for 10 months in a row. NHS England said that, overall, the average time patients had been waiting for planned treatment fell to the lowest level since July 2022 – 13.3 weeks – despite services facing greater demand. Meghana Pandit, NHS England's co-national medical director, said NHS staff were working to 'turn the tide for patients waiting for care'. She said while huge pressure on services remains, 'we are starting to see a real difference across our services – this is just the start of the work we're doing to reform care and deliver improvements for patient'.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Welcome to the 'National Health State': Half of all public spending will go on NHS by the end of the decade despite alarm at dire productivity... and bosses STILL want more
The growing stranglehold of the NHS over public spending was underlined today as Brits digest Rachel Reeves ' plans. A respected think-tank has insisted the UK is turning into the 'National Health State' after another major funding boost. In an extraordinary spree, the Chancellor allocated an extra £29billion per year and more cash for capital investment. Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, pointed out that amounted to 90 per cent of Labour 's extra public spending. She cautioned that continued a 'trend that is seeing the British state morph into a National Health State, with half of public service spending set to be on health by the end of the decade'. The latest huge cash injection comes despite concerns about progress in improving productivity in the NHS. Health service chiefs have also been warning that more money will be needed, with nurses already balloting for industrial action over an inflation-busting 3.6 pr cent pay offer. Matthew Taylor, of the NHS Confederation, which represents health organisations, said: 'Difficult decisions will still need to be made as this additional £29billion won't be enough to cover increasing costs of new treatments, with staff pay likely to account for a large proportion of it. 'On its own, this won't guarantee that waiting time targets are met.' Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, told the NHS ConfedExpo conference in Manchester that the health service has done 'really well relative to other parts of the public service'. But he added: 'We all know it's never enough because of the scale of advancement, all the ambition, the day-to-day cost pressures... but I think everyone's starting to accept and understand we've got what the country can afford to give us. 'We really need to get better value for that money – it is broadly the equivalent of the GDP of Portugal, so it's a huge amount.' Ms Curtice said defence was another winner from the Spending Review, receiving a significant increase in capital spending while other departments saw an overall £3.6billion real-terms cut in investment. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has made similar arguments about 'substantial' investment in the NHS and defence coming at the expense of other departments, although the think tank's director Paul Johnson warned the money may not be enough. He said: 'Aiming to get back to meeting the NHS 18-week target for hospital waiting times within this Parliament is enormously ambitious – an NHS funding settlement below the long-run average might not measure up. 'And on defence, it's entirely possible that an increase in the Nato spending target will mean that maintaining defence spending at 2.6% of GDP no longer cuts the mustard.' Ms Curtice added that low and middle-income families had also done well out of the spending review 'after two rounds of painful tax rises and welfare cuts', with the poorest fifth of families benefiting from an average of £1,700 in extra spending on schools, hospitals and the police. She warned that, without economic growth, another round of tax rises was likely to come in the autumn as the Chancellor seeks to balance the books. She said: 'The extra money in this spending review has already been accounted for in the last forecast. 'But a weaker economic outlook and the unfunded changes to winter fuel payments mean the Chancellor will likely need to look again at tax rises in the autumn.' Ms Reeves insisted she would not have to raise taxes to cover her spending review - but stopped short of ruling them out. She told GB News: 'Every penny of this is funded through the tax increases and the changes to the fiscal rules that we set out last autumn.'
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
'My Center Parcs bowling back pain was actually sinister symptom'
Amy Boe, 47, was diagnosed after feeling aches and pains A mum's "back pain" during a family bowling trip at Center Parcs turned out to be a sinister symptom of advanced breast cancer. Amy Boe, 47, initially experienced discomfort in her left breast and was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in June 2023. She underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, and doctors believed they had successfully treated the disease. However, just a week after completing preventative treatment in February 2024, she experienced back pain during a family bowling outing. Initially thinking she had "pulled something", further tests revealed it was a sign of stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, which had spread to her liver and bones. Doctors informed her that chemotherapy was no longer an option. Amy sought to try a treatment called transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), where chemotherapy drugs are delivered directly to the tumour in her liver via a catheter inserted into the supplying artery. This treatment is only available on the NHS for primary liver cancers, but Amy has secondary liver cancer. Facing a £40,000 bill for private treatment in the UK, she's raising £20,000 for more affordable treatments in Germany. She began this treatment in May and is fundraising for the next round on June 19. UK doctors have deemed her cancer incurable but treatable and Amy remains hopeful that the TACE treatment will lead to remission. Husband Alex, a photographer from Alnwick, Northumberland, said: "She was getting a lot of pain in her back, and we went bowling, and she hurt herself, but that turned out to be the cancer's return. It's devastating for us all. The second diagnosis was a massive shock because we were going into the hospital, expecting to get the all-clear." Amy, a mum-of-three, remains optimistic: "I feel really positive about the treatment and I met a lady last time I went there and she received positive results." The couple has been hit hard by the news that despite chemotherapy and radiotherapy for breast cancer, it has now spread to Amy's bones and liver. Alex explained that "two cells got away" leading to this aggressive spread. They are now facing costly trips to Frankfurt, Germany, for further treatment, with each visit estimated at £5,000. Alex revealed that Amy might need three trips, and they've managed to raise just over £6,000 so far. Alex added: "I've got a big family that has shared it, and we are doing a few fundraisers that Amy's friend has set up to add to the tally. Amy has always stayed really positive, and she is not one for lying around. She always wants to do stuff with the kids. "This treatment has really wiped her out, and she struggled to eat during the chemotherapy. Before the cancer, she worked in a hotel, and she was always the type to get up and go. "Even though she was going through chemotherapy, she was still working through the early stages. She has always put others before herself. We want to ensure she has access to the medical support she needs, along with making memories with her beautiful children."
