Can targeted radiotherapy keep treatment working for longer in men with advanced cancer?
Grant information
Researchers: Dr Julia Murray and Professor Emma Hall
Institution: Institute of Cancer Research
Grant award: £865,279
Reference: RIA21-ST2-015
What you need to know
• The researchers want to see if a kind of targeted radiotherapy, called stereotactic body radiotherapy, can slow the progression of advanced prostate cancer.
• They will trial the radiotherapy in two groups of men on hormone therapy whose cancer has not responded or is progressing in five or fewer sites beyond the prostate.
• If this kind of radiotherapy is effective, it could mean that existing medicines can control advanced prostate cancer for longer, extending men’s lives.
STAR-TRAP will enable us to see if targeted radiotherapy can delay the next line of treatment for men with metastatic prostate cancer. By delaying the progression of cancer or the next treatment, we could help men enjoy a better quality of life for longer. We’ll also use advanced imaging techniques to decide if these scans can predict which patients are likely to benefit from SBRT.
What will Dr Murray and Professor Hall’s team do?
Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a very targeted kind of radiotherapy. Instead of using one intense beam of radiation directed straight at the tumour, SBRT uses multiple beams of different intensities. These beams come from different angles and meet at the tumour.
This means the tumour receives a high dose of radiation, while the surrounding areas receive a much lower dose – making it less likely that the person undergoing SBRT will experience side effects.
Previous research has shown that SBRT is safe and effective for people with a small number of metastases (sites where the cancer has spread beyond the original tumour), including in prostate cancer, and the treatment is now widely available in the UK.
The researchers now want to test if it is effective in men with more advanced prostate cancer through a clinical trial called STAR-TRAP.
They will recruit 236 men who are having the standard treatment for metastatic prostate cancer that responds to hormone therapy. Of these, 3/4 will be men who are still responding well to the hormone therapy and the other quarter will be showing signs that their hormone therapy is becoming less effective.
The men will either continue on their existing treatment as normal, or be given a course of SBRT as well as their existing treatment.
This will enable the researchers to see whether SBRT helps extend the effectiveness of their existing treatments. They will also look at the PSMA PET-CT and MRI scans of men on the trial, to see if there are ways to predict which men will benefit most from SBRT.
How will this benefit men?
If SBRT can delay the progression of advanced cancer, it could be used to make existing treatments last longer.
Not only could that help men with advanced prostate cancer live longer, but it could also give them a better quality of life as SBRT could delay the need to give these men further treatments that come with additional side effects.
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