Two brothers received life-saving prostate cancer treatment within months of each other after a joke on a lad's holiday prompted them to take a test.

Keith Powell, 68, underwent a radical prostatectomy just months after his younger brother, Alan, 66, had the same operation.

The brothers even underwent their surgeries at the same hospital in Surrey with the same surgeon - and say they feel lucky to have caught the cancer before it spread.

Retired gas and heating engineer Alan decided to get tested after a chance remark about the number of times 'men of a certain age' go to the toilet on a lad's holiday made him think.

His brother's diagnosis led to Keith taking the same test weeks later, yielding the same results.

On what prompted him to take a test in the first place, father-of-two Alan, from Lightwater in Surrey, recalled: “I was sharing a cabin on an overnight ferry with a group of friends and we ended up laughing about the amount of times men of a certain age get up in the night."

Alan explained that the joke prompted him to get a PSA test - a blood test that can help diagnose problems with the prostate.

"The next time I was at my GP I asked for a PSA test," he said.

“I had no symptoms at all and considered myself to be a reasonably active man, so what happened next was a bit of a shock."

Alan, who is due to welcome his first grandchild later this year, later underwent an MRI scan and a biopsy before receiving his dreaded cancer diagnosis.

At the end of October last year, surgeons at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford used pioneering robotic technology to remove his prostate.

The unsettling news of his younger brother's diagnosis then prompted Keith, who has previously been treated for skin cancer, to take the same test himself - which surprisingly returned a similar diagnosis.

Consultant urological surgeon Wiss am Abou-Chedid, who had already operated on Alan 12 weeks earlier, also performed Keith’s surgery at the same hospital earlier this week.

Keith admitted that he felt lucky that his younger brother decided to get tested on a whim - and that both of them caught their cancer before it worsened.

“Ahead of my surgery I was quite confident as I had been out for dinner with Alan who told me exactly what to expect,” he said.

“If he hadn’t decided to get tested, neither of us would have known we had cancer.

“I feel very fortunate that we both caught it before it had spread. The speed that it has been dealt with for both of us has been fantastic."

The prostate is a small gland in the pelvis around the size of a walnut which is part of the male reproductive system.

Neither of the brothers had experienced any symptoms prior to their diagnosis - a common occurrence, as prostate cancer typically develops slowly over many years.

However, the brothers’ father was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate in later life.

Mr Abou-Chedid explained how a family history of prostate cancer can increase the risks of developing it oneself, saying: “The causes of prostate cancer are largely unknown, although certain things can increase the risk of a patient developing the condition.

“You are two and a half times more likely to get prostate cancer if your father or brother has had it, compared to a man who has no relatives with the illness.

“Although it can run in families, having a family member with prostate cancer does not necessarily mean that you will get it.

"However, I would advise you to speak to your GP if you have a relative with prostate cancer, ovarian or breast cancer as your risk may be higher."

The Royal Surrey County Hospital is one of the only single-site NHS Trusts in the UK to have four cutting-edge robots all dedicated to performing surgery.

The state-of-the-art machines allow surgeons to use a control console to manoeuvre the robots’ arms, whilst using a minimally invasive approach, also known as keyhole surgery.

As a result, patients benefit from shorter hospital stays, quicker recovery, reduced blood loss and discomfort post-surgery and much more.