Blood test could help prostate cancer treatment

A simple blood test could help aid the treatment of prostate cancer.

The new test, which costs less than £50, can predict which patients are likely to respond to new drugs.

It comes as scientists found men with multiple copies of a gene which helps many cancers grow responded less well to treatment.

Each year around 41,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer and 11,000 die from the disease.

The study looked at drugs abiraterone and enzalutamide, which are both used to treat advanced prostate cancer.

Lead researcher Dr Gerhardt Attard, from the Centre for Evolution and Cancer at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: "Abiraterone and enzalutamide are excellent treatments for advanced prostate cancer and some men can take these drugs for years without seeing a return of their cancer.

"But in other men, these drugs do not work well and the disease rapidly returns. Currently, there is no approved test to help doctors choose whether these are the best treatments for an individual.

"We have developed a robust test that can be used in the clinic to pick out which men with advanced prostate cancer are likely to respond to abiraterone and enzalutamide, and which men might need alternative treatments.

"Our method costs less than £50, is quick to provide results, and can be implemented in hospital laboratories across the NHS.

"We are now looking to assess our test in prospective clinical trials and would hope it can become part of standard patient care."

The study was published in the journal Annals of Oncology.