Help give men with advanced prostate cancer more hope
By establishing what makes a man at a higher risk of prostate cancer, we can ensure that men are diagnosed early, while their cancer is still contained within the prostate. But many men are still being diagnosed too late.
When prostate cancer spreads outside of the prostate, it can be more difficult to treat and cure. The treatment options we have do not work for everyone, and we cannot leave these men behind.
Your support today can help us develop new treatments that will have an impact for these men now. Will you help give men with advanced prostate cancer more hope?
Stopping the growth and spread of prostate cancer
Men who are diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer already have limited treatment options and can become resistant to hormone therapies.
That’s why we’re funding a team at Cardiff University who are aiming to give men with advanced prostate cancer more targeted treatments – so that they can live a longer and healthier life.
Professor Richard Clarkson and Dr Helen Pearson are working together on a new way to help men who are diagnosed too late for a cure.
To do this, they are looking at a set of signals that can tell prostate cancer cells to move, grow, or die. By blocking the protein BCL3 with a new inhibitor drug, Professor Clarkson and Dr Pearson aim to stop cellular messages promoting the cancer to grow and spread. This new approach makes the drug much more targeted than some existing treatments like chemotherapy.
Professor Clarkson and his team had already been studying BCL3 in breast and bowel cancers, and over the last ten years, have been developing a drug to slow the rate of growth of these cancers.
Meanwhile, Dr Pearson and her team – working in the same institute – had discovered that BCL3 played a similar role in prostate cancer.
By combining their expertise, they are working to provide a new drug for men who have very few options left.
You can read more about their research here.
Will you help Dr Pearson and Professor Clarkson develop vital new treatment options for men?
Give men treatment options when they need them most
Men like Andrew Ridley – Andrew was just 51 when he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, only weeks after his father, Bob, was diagnosed. An MRI scan found that Andrew’s cancer had spread to his spine and bone marrow.
Because Andrew’s cancer was already so advanced, he had few treatment options available. His chance of surviving the next five years is just 30%.
Andrew is not the only man whose time will be cut short by prostate cancer. Across the UK, nearly 10,000 men a year are diagnosed with prostate cancer that is too advanced to be cured.
“This treatment would be a game-changer for men like me.” - Andrew Ridley
Research like Dr Pearson and Professor Clarkson’s could mean that more men like Andrew are given more options after their diagnosis, allowing them to live a longer and healthier life.
It’s about time men get the life-changing treatments they need.
These advances in research could create a future where men like Andrew are given more treatment options – more hope – when they need them most. Will you help make this possible?
