This was the second phase results from the Man Van, we presented the first phase the year before. So it was a study of almost  3,400 men that came in our mobile testing clinic for prostate cancer.

What were the results of this study?

The key things were that we changed things from phase I to phase II so that we had a higher throughput of patients. We saw more patients but we managed to maintain a higher rate of  tackling diversity compared to the background population. So almost 40% of the men that we saw were non-white, we also had high rates of recruitment from underserved populations and these are two key demographics that we were interested in.

In terms of the prostate cancer data we had a diagnostic rate of 3.1% for prostate cancer, of which the vast majority, 86% of those cancers, were clinically significant disease. As well as prostate cancer we found a host of other comorbidities, including diabetes and hypertension as well, which overall adds to the benefit of the project.

What is the significance of this study and what’s next?

The significance is that we believe we’ve developed a novel method of targeting and recruiting patients from underserved populations and ethnic minorities. We know that patients in these groups have worse health outcomes, not just from cancer but from all diseases. So by targeting them and offering them increased access to healthcare we’ve managed to show that you can offer this kind of service and you can do it on a large scale. Hopefully that can have an impact for both developed countries and also low- and middle-income countries as well where access to healthcare is even more problematic.