Research we fund

A genetic test to help men choose between surgery and radiotherapy

What you need to know

  • 20,000 men each year need to decide between surgery and radiotherapy to cure their prostate cancer.
  • Professor Ananya Choudhury will develop a genetic test to help men choose the best treatment for them based on the genetic make-up of their cancer.
  • This will give men a higher chance of a cure, less need for further treatments and ultimately a better quality of life.

Professor Ananya Choudhury and her team will study genetic changes in prostate cancer to develop a test that will guide men towards the best treatment for their individual cancer.

The 20,000 men problem

More than 47,500 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK each year, 20,000 of whom need treatment to potentially cure their disease. These men are faced with a decision between two treatment options – an operation or a course of radiotherapy. For many men this is a difficult decision to make as each treatment has a similar chance of cure but with very different risks and long-term side effects.

Individual men differ in their response to radiotherapy, and we currently have no way of knowing which men have cancers that can be cured with radiotherapy, and which men have cancers that are resistant. In this project, Professor Ananya Choudhury aims to develop a genetic test that will help men decide between surgery and radiotherapy based on the genetic make-up of their disease.

Finding clues in the genes

To do this, Professor Choudhury and her team will look at the genetic make-up of old prostate cancer samples from men treated with radiotherapy. This will help them identify specific genetic changes that are linked to a poor response to radiotherapy. This is known as a ‘gene expression signature’. They will then check this ‘signature’ in samples from thousands of men treated with radiotherapy or surgery to make sure it works.

Knowing which genetic changes influence radiotherapy response will help the team understand whether increasing the radiotherapy dose or giving radiotherapy and drug treatments together can overcome a poor response. This research should help all cancer patients receiving radiotherapy in the future.

Higher chance of a cure

By the end of the study, the team hope to have developed a genetic test that tells us which prostate cancers are less likely to respond to radiotherapy. This will help men choose the most effective treatment for their individual cancer, giving them the best chance of a cure.

Grant Information

Reference – MA-CT21-005

Researcher – Professor Ananya Choudhury

Institution – University of Manchester

Award - £545,488