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Routine prostate cancer check saved life of traffic cop

Feb 28 2010 by Kerry Wood, Sunday Sun

Stephen Lamb was diagnosed with prostate cancer after a chance blood test. With daughter Fiona

HE thought he was doing his bit helping out with a health study.

But the results of a simple blood sample changed Stephen Lamb’s life when - despite having no symptoms - he was told he had aggressive prostate cancer.

After an email went round at work Stephen, a traffic officer for Northumbria Police, offered to take part in a research programme looking at how people are tested for the cancer.

He said: “Before the test I was in perfect health. I ran everyday and was the fittest I’d ever been.

“I had no symptoms that would send me to the doctor and thought I was fine.

“I signed up to the scheme, thought they’d take a blood sample, I’d fill in a lifestyle form and that would be it.”

When the prostate specific antigen (PSA) in his blood came back with a mark of five, rather than a normal three, he didn’t worry.

Even after 10 biopsies at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital Stephen still felt OK and was told by doctors everything looked fine.

It was only after a microscopic examination and a referral to a consultant that the 54-year-old began to fear the worst.

Stephen, who lives in Morpeth with his family, said: “I was told I had prostate cancer.

“Looking back it would take a couple of seconds before I would wee, but I thought it was nothing.

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