Identifying cancers with low oxygen to improve radiotherapy

Grant information

Researcher - Dr Ananya Choudhury
Institution - University of Manchester
Grant award - £331,429
Duration - 2016-2021
Status - Completed
Reference – PG14-008-TR2

Why did we fund this project?

• Each prostate cancer is different, and so the best treatment for one man may be different to the best for another.
• For example, prostate cancers that have very low levels of oxygen don’t respond well to radiotherapy.
• Drugs have been developed that can raise the amount of oxygen in cancer, and this makes them respond better to radiotherapy.
• However, we currently can't tell which men have prostate cancers with low oxygen levels.
• In this project, Professor Ananya Choudhury and team wanted to change this. They set out to develop a test to identify men whose cancer has low oxygen levels, and so would benefit from taking oxygen-raising drugs alongside radiotherapy.

What did the team do?

• The team studied prostate cancer cells to identify a 'low oxygen signature' of genes that are changed in prostate cancers with low oxygen.
• The team tested if their signature could predict how men responded to radiotherapy.
• The team also wanted to identify the most effective way to measure their signature in men with prostate cancer, so it could be used in a hospital setting. 

What did the team achieve?

• The team successfully generated a low oxygen signature for prostate cancer, and a method to effectively measure this signature in prostate cancer biopsy tissue.
• The team found their low oxygen signature did not work well when they tested it in men who had radiotherapy.
• However, the team also used their methods to test a different low oxygen signature that was published by other scientists. Excitingly, they found that this signature was excellent at identifying cancers with low oxygen levels, that may benefit from oxygen-raising drugs.

What does this mean for men?

• The team now want to use the effective low oxygen signature in a clinical trial, where men with low oxygen in their cancer are given oxygen-raising drugs alongside radiotherapy.
• Currently, oxygen-raising drugs are successfully used to treat some other cancers such as head-and-neck cancer.
• If trials are successful, doctors could use the low oxygen signature to target oxygen-raising drugs to the right men. This could help more men with prostate cancer be successfully treated with radiotherapy.