THOUSANDS more men are checking their prostate cancer risk thanks to a campaign backed by Stephen Fry.
The QI star, who was diagnosed with a tumour in 2018, encouraged blokes to use the Prostate Cancer UK online tool in a video posted to Instagram.
EPAStephen Fry has backed the campaign after his own brush with cancer in 2018[/caption]
The tool is online at www.prostatecanceruk.org/risk-checker
He backed Paddy Power’s “Big 180” campaign which has already led to a surge in the number of men using the checker.
The bookmaker wants 180,000 men to use the tool and has pledged to donate £1,000 to Prostate Cancer UK for every 180 scored in the World Darts Championship starting on Friday– up to a possible £1million.
Fry said: “Prostate cancer is a serious disease and over one in eight men are diagnosed with it every year.
“I should know – I was one of them.
“But I also know that it’s a curable disease if caught in time.”
Since the Big 180 campaign launched on November 30, the risk checker has been used more than 36,000 times.
That is equal to 2,800 times per day and five times more than in the same period last year.
Three out of four men who took the test were found to be at high risk.
The test only takes seconds to complete and asks about your age, family health and ethnicity, which are all linked to the disease.
Prostate cancer is the most common type in men and more than 52,000 blokes are diagnosed every year in the UK – but three quarters survive 10 years or more.
Laura Kerby, chief of Prostate Cancer UK, said: “It is vital that men know their risk.
“We’re delighted that, before a dart has been thrown, we’ve seen a huge increase in the numbers of men using the online risk checker.”
Rachael Kane, from Paddy Power, added: “We can’t decide whether we’re more stunned that we appear to have triggered a five-fold jump in the number of men checking their risk or that a British icon and darts superfan like Stephen Fry has thrown his weight behind it.”
The tool is online at www.prostatecanceruk.org/risk-checker.