London - Prostate cancer treatment could be transformed by the discovery that it is actually five different diseases.
In landmark research, British scientists have shown that the most common cancer among men in the UK can be classified into five types, depending on its DNA.
The breakthrough could allow doctors to better distinguish the more common, slow-growing forms of the disease from the deadlier, faster-growing varieties – the ‘holy grail’ of prostate cancer research.
This would spare some men unnecessary treatment and save the lives of some of the 11 000 who die from the disease each year.
Prostate cancer is unusual because while many men may have the disease, it can grow so slowly it might not cause any problems and the patient eventually dies of something else.
But others have a fast-growing, dangerous form and need urgent attention to survive. Doctors use a variety of techniques, including blood tests, biopsies, microscopy and scans, to determine those most at risk.
But the difficulty in identifying the aggressive type means many men with the so-called “pussycat” form are subjected to painful and unnecessary treatments that can cause side-effects such as incontinence and impotence – and some men with the more dangerous “tiger” version may not get the powerful drugs they need.
But by peering deep into the DNA of tissue samples from 250 men, scientists from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and Addenbrooke’s Hospital, also in Cambridge, showed the disease can be split into five main types.
Two have the worst prognosis, and are a sign that a man has the more dangerous “tiger” form, two more signal the “pussycat” version and the fifth lies between in terms of severity. Importantly, the genetic analysis is more accurate than the existing methods for determining how serious the cancer is, the scientists report in the online journal EBioMedicine.
Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK’s prostate cancer expert, said: “The challenge in treating prostate cancer is that it can either behave like a pussycat – growing slowly and unlikely to cause problems in a man’s lifetime – or a tiger, spreading aggressively and requiring urgent treatment.
“But at the moment we have no reliable way to distinguish them. This research could be game-changing, and could give us better information to guide each man’s treatment – even helping us to choose between treatments for men with aggressive cancers.
“This could mean more effective treatment, helping save more lives and improve the quality of life for thousands.”
Daily Mail