Research
30 Sep 2014True NTH - a global revolution for men with prostate cancer
The Movember Foundation has announced the largest ever global investment to improve life for men with prostate cancer. The project, named True NTH, will develop and perfect programmes of care that can be shared around the world and recreated so all men can benefit from the best ideas. And we're leading the way in the UK.
The Movember Foundation has announced the largest ever global investment to improve life for men with prostate cancer. The project, named True NTH, will develop and perfect programmes of care that can be shared around the world and recreated so all men can benefit from the best ideas. And we're leading the way in the UK.
The Movember Foundation has committed over £5 million in the UK and over $35 million (US) globally to change the way men live with and beyond prostate cancer.
Many men across the world face side effects that have a huge impact on their lives during and after prostate cancer treatment. This could be sexual problems such as trouble getting erections, mental health issues such as depression and problems with incontinence.
Experts in different countries battle to improve the lives of these men, but their learnings – both good and bad – sometimes don’t travel further than the local hospital they’re developed in. So some men get great support with these issues, others do not. True NTH aims to level the playing field so all men can get back to enjoying their normal lives with or after prostate cancer.
True NTH will initially be launched in the UK as well as Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. The programmes will include services to help men and their familes at all stages of their prostate cancer journey including:
- understanding the consequences of treatment
- supported self-management (helping men manage their own recovery)
- exercise and diet
- managing incontinence, and
- tackling the late effects of pelvic radiation treatment.
They have been developed by a global collaboration of prostate cancer experts including academics, doctors and men with prostate cancer. Each of these programmes will also be monitored and evaluated to ensure that there is a demonstrable impact on care so they can be scaled and recreated nationally and internationally.
Heather Blake, Director of Services at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “There are over 250,000 men living with and after prostate cancer in the UK and as diagnosis and treatment for the disease improves, this figure is only set to increase. We know that a significant majority of these men experience a number of devastating side effects as a result of their treatment and all too often they tell us that they don’t receive the necessary support they need. This needs to change."
"The Universities of Southampton, Surrey, Cardiff, Sheffield and University College London are leading the UK projects which will improve and develop new ways to support men across a number of areas – from improving incontinence products and services, to helping increase understanding of the long term implications of treatment options. The True NTH programme has the potential to revolutionise post hospital care for men living with prostate cancer in the UK and across the globe, enabling more men to return to a good quality of life.”
John Marshall from Bolton, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007 and has been a volunteer in the programme's network. “True NTH takes the luck out of the health system. It will provide equal access to information and resources that will genuinely improve the lives of those men living with prostate cancer. True NTH will provide practical, solutions orientated information from diet and nutrition information to treatment information and peer-to-peer support. Through True NTH men will feel empowered to better look after their own health and it will make the information they need more accessible. All this is made possible by men growing moustaches in Movember.”
Professor Dame Jessica Corner, University of Southampton, UK, and Chair of Movember’s Global Prostate Cancer Survivorship Advisory Committee, said, “True NTH is a game-changer in cancer management that will lead the way in supporting the survival of men living with prostate cancer. It will revolutionise the provision of care for prostate cancer survivors and I truly believe that in the coming years, governments and funding bodies will look at True NTH as a model of care to follow.”
