David Cameron has revealed he has been diagnosed with and treated for prostate cancer.

The former British Prime Minister found out about the condition after being urged to take a test by his wife, Samantha, last year.

Speaking to The Times, Cameron explained how his wife initially urged him to seek a check via his GP after listening to a radio interview with Soho House founder Nick Jones.

After taking a prostate-specific antigen test (PSA), which looks for proteins associated with prostate cancer, Cameron said his results came back worryingly high, and a biopsy eventually confirmed cancer.

"You have an MRI scan with a few black marks on it. You think, 'Ah, that's probably OK,' Cameron told The Times. Then a doctor confirmed he had cancer.

"You always dread hearing those words. And then 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.'"

Cameron said he then faced a decision to watch and wait or undergo treatment.

He told The Times that the fact that his older brother, Alexander, had died at the same age of pancreatic cancer, focused his mind.

Cameron decided to go ahead with treatment, opting for a less intrusive focal therapy, which uses electric pulses delivered by needles to eliminate the cancerous cells.

He is now backing a call by the British charity Prostate Cancer to offer all high-risk older men screening for the disease, which kills about 12,000 men a year in the UK.