This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Blood test spells hope for accurate prostate cancer treatment
The Centre for Evolution and Cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research has developed a blood test that could help target treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer.
For the study, published in the journal Annals of Oncology, scientists took blood samples from 265 patients taking part in three different clinical trials. The findings indicated that patients with multiple copies of a particular gene did not respond to abiraterone and enzalutamide - drugs commonly used to treat advanced cases of the condition.
It is hoped the blood test can enable more accuracy with regards to treatment of the disease which could prevent thousands of men undergoing unnecessary treatment and allow more personalised care.
At less than £50 for an individual test, the procedure is a quick and relatively cheap way of preventing men from undergoing the side effects of therapy that will fail.
The news comes as around 46,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK every year, one in four of them at an advanced stage.
Lead researcher Dr Gerhardt Attard, from the Centre for Evolution and Cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said: "Abiraterone and enzalutamide are excellent treatments for advanced prostate cancer and some men can take these drugs for years without seeing a return of their cancer.
"But in other men, these drugs do not work well and the disease rapidly returns. Currently, there is no approved test to help doctors choose whether these are the best treatments for an individual.
"We have developed a robust test that can be used in the clinic to pick out which men with advanced prostate cancer are likely to respond to abiraterone and enzalutamide, and which men might need alternative treatments."
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