When 63 year-old Hing Hung was diagnosed with prostate cancer four years ago, he was shocked.
"At first when I heard that I felt very sad because cancer is always bad," said Mr Hung.
Mr Hung said in his home city, Hong Kong, there was limited information about prostate cancer.
He credited his GP for his early diagnosis.
"My GP suggested I do a blood test regularly and then I did one biopsy test and found that there's a cancer cell."
But this process has since changed.
Hing Hung with his wife, May (SBS) Source: SBS
Under guidelines recently endorsed by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, GPs will now only discuss prostate screening if it is brought up by the patient.
RACGP President, Dr Frank Jones said it's part of a push to reduce over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment.
"The problem is we don't have great diagnostic aids to help us. So really this is about a benefits versus harms risk. The tests that we have are twofold. One we have historically is the finger up the tail end to feel the prostate and that's been shown to not really help us that much unless a man has got specific symptoms- for example, blood in the urine et cetera, we would obviously want to look at that very closely," he said.
"But secondly we have this blood test, the PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) which is really what all the controversy is about so we know that of the thousand men who are given the PSA blood test only two out of that 1000 will avoid cancer death and two will avoid spread of cancer."
But it's a delicate balance.
"The figures are quite alarming. We would see a return to the bad old days of men turning up in the emergency room with severe bone pain or in a paraplegic or quadriplegic condition."
Urological surgeon at the Sydney Medical School, Professor Henry Woo said not discussing prostate cancer testing with men unless it is raised by the patient may lead to an increase in cases of prostate cancer that go undetected.
"I get very concerned when there's messages being sent out there that prostate cancer does not need to be even discussed or diagnosed."
When he first started out as a doctor in the 1980s, Professor Woo had more patients with advanced forms of prostate cancer caused by limited information on the disease.
Urological Surgeon at the Sydney Medical School, Professor Henry Woo (SBS) Source: SBS
"There have been a number of studies that have evaluated the risk of seeing a return of these types of cases if we were to abandon early prostate cancer testing," Professor Woo said.
"And the figures are quite alarming. We would see a return to the bad old days of men turning up in the emergency room with severe bone pain or in a paraplegic or quadriplegic condition."
"I have grave concerns that there are going to be some men who have clinically significant disease who miss out on the opportunity to be diagnosed and appropriately treated with life-saving treatment."
Dr Jones from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said he disagrees.
"I think that most men are aware of their prostate these days and the risks of prostate cancer and my personal experience is that men naturally ask me about it."
However General Practitioner Dr Brian Morton supported Professor Woo's concerns.
"Men generally only come to the doctor when they're sick. They don't present usually for a check up and I think it's important that they are given the opportunity to address issues relevant to their health."
Professor Woo said he was particularly concerned for for men who migrated from overseas, who traditionally have the lowest rates of testing for prostate cancer.
"I have grave concerns that there are going to be some men who have clinically significant disease who miss out on the opportunity to be diagnosed and appropriately treated with life-saving treatment," he said.
"Even though men born overseas have a lower risk of prostate cancer compared to Australian-born individuals that doesn't mean that they don't have the capacity to develop serious prostate cancer."
