Tag

• 3m men in the US and 330,000 men in the UK are living with prostate cancer
• The standard test used to diagnose prostate cancer is inaccurate
• This inaccuracy causes anxiety in men and leads to unnecessary treatments
• Standard therapies for prostate cancer can result in incontinence and impotence
• Two new studies describe procedures that promise significant improvements in diagnosis and treatment

Prostate cancer is increasing in significance worldwide. In many industrialized countries such as the US and the UK, it is one of the most common cancers and among the leading causes of cancer deaths. In developing countries it may be less common, but its incidence and mortality rates have been on the rise. In the US there are some 3m men living with the disease.  It is expected that in 2017, 161,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the US, and 27,000 men will die from it. In the UK, there are some 330,000 men living with prostate cancer; each year around 47,000 men are diagnosed with the disease, and each year some 11,000 die from it, which equates to one every hour. Worldwide, there are an estimated 1.6m new cases of prostate cancer, and 366,000 prostate cancer deaths annually, making it the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and the seventh leading cause of male cancer death.
 

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The prostate and prostate cancer

The prostate is a small gland in men, which is located below the bladder and above the rectum. The urethra, which is the tube that carries urine and semen out of the body through the penis, goes through the centre of the prostate. In younger men the prostate is about the size of a walnut, but in older men it can be much larger. Symptoms of prostate cancer include persistent burning, difficult, frequent, uncontrolled or bloody urination in the absence of any infection. The average age of onset is 65 to 69. It is particularly prevalent in African-Caribbean men: affecting I in 4, and killing I in 12, which is double the rate for that of Caucasian men. The main risk factor is age: 80% of all men diagnosed with prostate cancer are over 65. Between 5% and 9% of cases occur in men with a family history of prostate, breast or ovarian cancer. Environmental factors are unclear, but rates of prostate cancer are lower in less urbanised societies, and rates rise when people move to a more westernised diet and lifestyle.

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The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test

In the 1980s a simple and cheap blood test was introduced to detect prostate cancer in its earliest, most curable, stage. In the video below Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer expert, describes the PSA test. Although used to detect prostate cancer, it is not a test for prostate cancer, and as a consequence, it has unresolved challenges. The most significant arises because the test is not accurate enough to either rule out or confirm the presence of cancer. Indeed, it is possible for PSA levels to be elevated when cancer is not present, and not to be elevated when it is present. More than 65% of men with elevated PSA levels do not have cancer. Excessive reliance on the test may lead to unnecessary interventions, while insufficient reliance may cause cancers to be missed.
 

 

Biopsies
 

A biopsy will often be recommended if a PSA test is high. It may also be recommended if a digital rectal examination (DRE) reveals a lump or some other abnormality in the prostate. The most commonly used biopsy for diagnosing prostate cancer is the trans-rectal ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy (TRUS-biopsy). This is a surgical procedure, in which tissue is removed from the prostate for microscopic examination. Each year, over 100,000 prostate biopsies are carried out in the UK and 1m in Europe.
 
75 to 80% of men who have TRUS-biopsies have no cancerous cells, and therefore did not need the biopsy. 20 to 25% do have cancerous cells, but a large percentage of these do not need any treatment because the cancers are slow growing.  A 2014 paper by the Harvard School of Public Health estimates that only 3% of men suspected of prostate cancer have an aggressive tumor requiring immediate intervention.
 
Further, doctors cannot tell from a biopsy whether cancerous cells are aggressive and need treatment, or whether they are developing slowly and do not require treatment. This creates confusion and anxiety among men, which prompts a percentage to opt for treatment even though the overwhelming majority do not need it. 25% of older men who elect to have treatment will become incontinent or impotent as a result, despite the fact that they did not need the treatment.
 

Active surveillance

 
In a significant proportion of men, prostate cancer cells grow slowly and never pose a serious risk to health and longevity. Evidence suggests that early treatment with either surgery or radiation does not reduce mortality rates, but leaves a significant percentage of men with urinary or erectile problems and other adverse effects. As a result, more men are willing to manage their condition by active surveillance, in which doctors monitor low-risk cancers closely and consider treatment only when the condition appears to make threatening moves toward growing and spreading. These men choose to live with prostate cancer until it advances, sometimes avoiding potentially life-altering side effects for several years. Active surveillance is a powerful solution to the problem of over-diagnosis and overtreatment.
 

New studies promise significantly improved management

Prostate cancer lags behind other cancers in diagnosis, treatment and research funding. But this is beginning to change. Over the past year, findings of two clinical studies promise significant improvements in the management of the condition.

The first, published in 2017 in the Lancet, describes a process, which uses MRI-guided biopsies to improve the accuracy of prostate cancer diagnosis, and spares those who do not have aggressive cancers from undergoing an unnecessary biopsy, so reducing the confusion and anxiety which prostate patients often experience.

The second, published in 2016 in the Lancet Oncology, describes findings of a laser-activated drug derived from bacteria found at the bottom of the sea that attacks and kills prostate cancer cells without either removing or destroying the prostate gland. This is significant because it avoids the potential adverse effects of surgery and radiotherapy, which can render patients incontinent and/or impotent. 
 

The multi-parametric MRI

The 2017 Lancet study used an advanced type of MRI scan, known as a multi-parametric MRI (MP-MRI), which in addition to recording the shape and size of the prostate, also assesses the blood flow through the gland. Led by Dr Hashim Ahmed of University College London, the study was comprised of more than 500 British men with suspected prostate cancer. Results suggest that using the MP-MRI to triage men would safely reduce the number needing a primary biopsy by about 27%, and substantially improve the detection of clinically significant cancers. If subsequent TRUS-biopsies were directed by MP-MRI findings, up to 18% more cases of clinically significant cancers might be detected compared with the standard pathway of TRUS-biopsy for all.
 

A paradigm shift in prostate cancer treatment

The second study compared the safety and effectiveness of a new therapy called vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (VTP, also known as TOOKAD), with active surveillance in men with low-risk prostate cancer. It funded by STEBA Biotech, which holds the commercial licence for the therapy. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is not new, and has been used to treat skin and other cancers where light can easily penetrate.  VTP therapy, however, is viewed as a paradigm shift in prostate cancer care. It involves injecting a light-sensitive drug (padeliporfin or WST11) into the bloodstream, and then activating it with a laser to destroy cancerous tissue.  The benefit of this approach is damage to healthy prostate tissue is minimised, reducing the risk of side effects.
 

Findings

The study was comprised of 413 men at low risk of prostate cancer, and carried out across 47 treatment sites in 10 European countries, most of which were performing VTP therapy for the first time. Only men classified with low-risk cancer were included in this study. Participants were randomly assigned either to VTP therapy or active surveillance. At the end of two years, of the 196 men who received the VTP treatment, about half showed no signs of the disease, compared with 13.5% of those given standard care. Only 6% of the VTP group later needed radical treatment, compared with 30% of active surveillance patients. VTP treatment also doubled the average time of cancer progression from 14 to 28 months. Findings suggest that 49% of patients treated with VTP therapy went into complete remission compared with 13.5% in the control group.

A third of the VTP group experienced side effects compared to only 10 of the active surveillance group. Notwithstanding, the study concluded that, “VTP therapy is a safe, effective treatment for low-risk, localised prostate cancer, which might allow more men to consider a tissue-preserving approach and defer or avoid radical therapy”. Patient monitoring will continue in order to ascertain whether the cancer stays away. Further studies should help to understand better which cancers VTP  treatment is most appropriate for so that men can make more informed treatment decisions.

Study enhanced by MRI scanning
 

The study was conducted with people at low risk of prostate cancer. Those at very low risk are better off with no treatment and no adverse-effects. Professor Mark Emberton of University College London, the lead author of the study, believes the therapy will be most useful in patients in the “grey zone”, between low and high risk. “The fact that the treatment was performed so successfully by non-specialist centres in various health systems is really remarkable”, says Emberton because the lack of complication suggests that the treatment protocol is safe, and relatively easy to scale.

At the beginning of the study MRI scans were not universally available, and Emberton believes MRI scanning as suggested by the Ahmed 2017 study will have a significant positive effect on prostate cancer treatment in the future. When carrying out biopsies without guidance from MRI scans researchers had to guess where in the prostate the cancer was; so biopsies were sub-optimal. “If they were to do the study now, with the help of MRI scans, they could hit the cancerous parts of the prostate rather than going in blind and the results would be much better,” says Emberton.
 

Takeaways

 
These two recent studies are potential “game changers”. They promise to significantly enhance the management of prostate cancer and substantially reduce the uncertainty and anxiety, as well as the risks of the life altering side effects of treatment, experienced by millions of men living with the disease.

• Experts describe new prostate cancer study as the disease’s ‘Rosetta Stone’

• Prostate cancer kills nearly 11,000 men each year in the UK alone

• Men with untreatable prostate cancer could benefit from standard drugs

• Study opens black box of genetics to treat previously untreatable cancer

• Mediterranean diet lowers mortality risk for men with prostate cancer

A new UK-US cancer study could transform prostate cancer treatment, and give hope to sufferers whose cancers have become resistant to treatment. Experts’ hail the study as “incredibly exciting and ground breaking”. According to Professor Johann de Bono, of the Institute of Cancer Research, London, who led the British team, the study opens up a new era of treatment, in which men will be given drugs tailored to their tumours. 

Cancer is lethal when it metastasises and becomes resistant to drugs. The study, published in the journal Cell in 2015, involved 150 men close to death whose prostate cancers had spread throughout their bodies, and were not responding to available drugs. 
     

Prostate cancer’s ‘Rosetta Stone’

The research has opened up a black box in cancer genetics, and changes the way we think about and treat prostate cancer. Now that doctors have a map of which mutations to look for, they could search for them using a £200 test. 

De Bono, extracted samples of the cancer from metastatic tumors, and analysed their DNA, which showed that 90% of the men carried genetic mutations in their tumors, which matched drugs already on the market. A third of the men studied had tumors suitable for treatment with new drugs called PARP inhibitors.

‘’We're describing this study as prostate cancer's Rosetta Stone because of the ability it gives us to decode the complexity of the disease, and to translate the results into personalised treatment plans for patients. What's hugely encouraging is that many of the key mutations we have identified are ones targeted by existing cancer drugs - meaning that we could be entering a new era of personalised cancer treatment," says de Bono.

According to de Bono, “We are changing how long these men are living. This gives me hope that I can make a difference for men dying of prostate cancer. There is still a lot of work to do. This is not a cure, but it is a huge step forward.” 
 

Prostate cancer

In an earlier Commentary we discussed the dilemmas men face when they have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and each day in the UK alone 110 men are diagnosed with the disease. Cancer begins to grow in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system, and develops slowly. Although it can be cured if diagnosed early, there may be no signs that you have it for many years, and symptoms often only become apparent when your prostate is large enough to affect the urethra. Here cancer expert Professor Karol Sikora describes the symptoms of advanced prostate cancer:

         
             
Once prostate cancer begins to spread it becomes difficult to treat, and each year nearly 11,000 men die of the disease in the UK. Treatment options include watchful waiting, surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, biological therapy and bisphosphonate therapy.
 

Mediterranean diet

According to research published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, a Mediterranean diet rather than a Western diet may improve survivorship for men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

This is welcome news because there is a dearth of evidence to counsel men living with prostate cancer on how they can modify their lifestyle to lower the risk of mortality. The new study from Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, investigated the diets of 926 men with prostate cancer for an average of 14 years after their diagnosis, and in 2015 published their findings, which suggest that people living with prostate cancer who ate a predominantly Western diet, high in red and processed meat, fatty dairy foods, and refined grains, were two-and-a-half times more likely to die from prostate cancer, and had a 67% increased risk of all-cause mortality, compared with participants who followed a Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetables, fruits, fish, whole grains, and healthy oils. In comparison, men who follow a Mediterranean diet had a 36% lower risk of all-cause mortality.

Lead author Meng Yang suggests treating the findings cautiously, "Given the scarcity of literature on the relationship between post-diagnostic diet and prostate cancer progression, and the small number of disease-specific deaths in the current study.”
 

Dietary supplements and vitamins

Researchers continue to look for foods (or substances in them) that can help lower prostate cancer risk. Scientists have found some substances in tomatoes (lycopenes) and soybeans (isoflavones) that might help prevent prostate cancer. Studies are now looking at the possible effects of these compounds more closely. Scientists are also trying to develop related compounds that are even more potent, and might be used as dietary supplements. 
 

Takeaways

Some studies suggest that certain vitamin and mineral supplements (such as vitamin E and selenium) might lower prostate cancer risk. But a large study of this issue, called the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), found that neither vitamin E nor selenium supplements lowered prostate cancer risk after daily use for about five years. In fact, men taking the vitamin E supplements were later found to have a slightly higher risk of prostate cancer.

De Bono’s breakthrough in cancer genetics means that many men whose prostate cancer was thought untreatable could be given drugs that are already on hospital shelves. Some patients have already benefited, and are alive more than a year on, despite only having been given weeks to live.