Cliff Richard reveals prostate cancer diagnosis
Legendary singer Sir Cliff Richard has revealed that he was diagnosed and subsequently treated for prostate cancer.
The 85-year-old revealed the news on Good Morning Britain, explaining that the diagnosis was discovered during a health check-up for a recent tour.
Thankfully, Richard confirmed that the disease had been caught early and it had not spread to other areas of his body.
“I was going to Australia and to New Zealand and the promoter said, ‘Well we need your insurance, so you need to be checked up for something’. They found that I had… prostate cancer,” Richard said.
He added: “The good fortune was that it was not very old, and the other thing is that it had not metastasised. It hadn’t moved, nothing into bones or anything like that.”
Although he has been successfully treated, Richard noted, “I don’t know whether it’s going to come back. We can’t tell those sort of things but we need to, absolutely, I’m convinced, get there, get tested, get checked.”
The ‘Summer Holiday’ singer also strongly advocated for a national cancer screening programme, saying it was “absolutely ridiculous” that one was not already in place.
“We have governments to look after our country and those who live in that country, so I can’t see how you can say, ‘Oh we can do this, we can do that, but we don’t do this for these people’,” he said.
“We all deserve to have the same ability to have a test and then start treatments really early. It seems to me – I’ve only been for one year now in touch with cancer, but every time I’ve talked with anybody, this has come up and so I think our government must listen to us.”
According to the NHS, prostate cancer symptoms include changes to the way men urinate, as well as blood in the urine, erectile dysfunction, and possible back pain.
It most commonly affects men over 50 years old, but it can often be treated successfully if it is caught early.
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