A £50 blood test can identify which men with advanced prostate cancer will respond well to the standard drug treatment, a study has shown.
Prostate blood test breakthrough
If adopted, it could prolong lives, and spare patients unnecessary side effects, by ensuring that those who won’t respond to the drugs are offered alternative treatments. In advanced cases, where the cancer is no longer responding to hormone therapy, and is spreading, patients are now usually offered two targeted drugs – abiraterone and enzalutamide. Many patients can take these and live cancer-free for years; but in other men, the cancer quickly returns. Now, by testing the blood of 265 patients, the team of British scientists, along with colleagues in Europe, have discovered that these drugs are not effective on tumours that carry a particular genetic abnormality (possibly because the drugs don’t attach properly to the genetic receptor). The scientists believe 15%-30% of patients have this abnormality. They’ll now investigate whether giving these men immediate chemotherapy improves their outcomes.
Should statins be relabelled?
This story is from the May 13, 2017 edition of The Week Middle East.
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This story is from the May 13, 2017 edition of The Week Middle East.
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