Researchers Discover Five Distinct Strains of Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with more than 40,000 diagnosed every year. “These findings could help doctors decide on the best course of treatment for each individual patient, based on the characteristics of their tumour”.

Although the proceedure needs to be confirmed with larger trials, in its initial phases it has shown itself more effective than the current prostate cancer tests, the PSA test and Gleason score, according to the researchers.

By looking for abnormal chromosomes and measuring the activity of 100 different genes linked to the disease they were able to group the tumours into five distinct types.

Commenting on the study, Prof Malcolm Mason, a prostate cancer expert with Cancer Research UK, pointed out that the disease can behave very differently in different men.

The discovery could be a breakthrough for doctors seeking ways to treat prostate cancer, as it allows them to find tumors that may likely be more aggressive and faster-growing than others.

Prostate cancer is unusual because while many men may have the disease, it can grow so slowly it might not cause any problems and the patient eventually dies of something else.

MRI provides the best picture of primary prostate cancer, but ordinary MRI (left) must be enhanced with diffusion weighted (center) or dynamic contrast enhanced (right) technologies to give the optimum view of the tumor.

But the difficulty in identifying the aggressive type means many men with the so-called “pussycat” form are subjected to painful and unnecessary treatments that can cause side-effects such as incontinence and impotence – and some men with the more risky “tiger” version may not get the powerful drugs they need. But at the moment we have no reliable way to distinguish them.

Dr Iain Frame, director of research at the charity Prostate Cancer UK said: “Developing the ability to tell a man which type of prostate cancer he has and which treatments it will respond to is hugely important if we are going to beat this disease”.