Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
During an interview with The Times, published on Sunday, November 23, Cameron, 59, revealed details into the diagnosis which was presented after testing prompted by his wife, Samantha Cameron, earlier this year.
He told the outlet, “You always hope for the best. You have a high PSA score — that’s probably nothing. You have an MRI scan with a few black marks on it. You think, ‘Ah, that’s probably OK.’ But when the biopsy comes back, and it says you have got prostate cancer … you always dread hearing those words. Literally as they’re coming out of the doctor’s mouth, you’re thinking, ‘Oh, no, he’s going to say it. He’s going to say it. Oh God, he said it.’” (A PSA test involves taking a blood sample to screen for prostate cancer, according to Mayo Clinic.)
David, who served as Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016, also noted that he has received focal therapy to treat the cancer. Cleveland Clinic details this localized therapy as a “type of treatment that uses various types of energy (like heat or cold) to destroy cancer cells.”
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He told the outlet that his decision to go public with the diagnosis was deeply considered. “I want to, as it were, come out. I want to add my name to the long list of people calling for a targeted screening [program],” David explained. “I don’t particularly like discussing my personal intimate health issues, but I feel I ought to. Let’s be honest. Men are not very good at talking about their health. We tend to put things off.”
David also noted, “I’ve got a platform. This is something we’ve really got to think about, talk about, and if necessary, act on.”
David and Samantha, 54, have welcomed four children together. Their firstborn son, Ivan, suffered from Ohtahara syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that occurs in infants, according to the Child Neurology Foundation, and died at the age of 6.
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The couple are also parents to daughter Nancy, born in 2004, son Arthur, born in 2006, and daughter Florence, born in 2010.
In October 2024, David spoke candidly about the death of Ivan during an interview with Sky News. “Bringing up children is hard enough but if you have a child who is having seizures every day, is having to be fed through a tube and needs to be cared for all night as well as all day, who’s going in and out of hospital,” he told the outlet at the time. “I can still remember the chaos… you’re in hospital, then you’re back home, then you’re back again. I had just become an MP [when Ivan was born]. I remember turning up for debates in the House of Commons completely exhausted because I’ve been in St Mary’s Paddington [hospital] all night.”
He then reflected on the light his family managed to find while navigating his late son’s illness. “I remember this great blessing of having your first child. In spite of all the difficulties he had with the seizures and cerebral palsy and everything – you still remember this beautiful, smiling boy that you would rest on your lap and look after and love,” he told the outlet. “The extraordinary thing about grief is to start with, there’s nothing but black clouds. But after a while, happy memories do break through.”
