Precision Medicine Breakthrough for Treatment of Prostate Cancer
The Institute of Cancer Research has worked on a study for a personalised drug called olaparib to use a patient's genes to delay the growth of prostate cancer amongst men who had not responded to other treatments.
The ICR's research shows that it works in 80% of the men with those genes.
The treatment exploits a weakness in the cancer cells' defence to kill a tumour without harming healthy cells.
This is the first personalised drug for prostate cancer, following in the footsteps of others, which are available for ovarian cancer. Olaparib was first made available on the NHS for ovarian cancer three years ago and is expected to be used for breast cancer soon.
Although there have been significant advances in other cancers, the number of British men dying from prostate cancer has been going up, and is now nearly 12,000 a year. The treatment is not a cure, but could extend the lives of 4,000 men each year. It is designed to be more precise than chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
Professor Johann de Bono, the study lead, commented: "Overall, between one in three and one in four men with lethal prostate cancer respond - that means 3,000 or 4,000 men a year in the UK would benefit." In rare cases, he said men had survived on the drug for ten years.
There are now plans for larger trials for the drug in prostate cancer.
Comment
Precision medicine is the future. This is another exciting development on that journey. Hopefully, further tests will show the benefit of the application of the drug to people with certain genes, and this will improve the lives of thousands.
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