Promising new treatment may be a prostate cancer game changer

Australian researchers have developed a groundbreaking new prostate cancer treatment which has shown better results and fewer side effects than chemotherapy in early trials.

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre nuclear medicine physician, Professor Michael Hofman, said the treatment involves the use of a radioactive molecule known as LuPSMA, which seeks out cancer cells and binds to them, minimising the harm to the surrounding healthy cells.

“We give it intravenously and it travels around the blood stream and hones it way to find prostate cancer cells and thereby delivers high doses of radiation to prostate cancer cells,” Professor Hofman told 3AW’s Ross and John.

“The actual radiation travels only one millimetre, so there’s very limited damage to tissues.”

A trial comparing chemotherapy to LuPSMA treatment in 200 men found the new treatment is more effective than chemotherapy, and has fewer side effects.

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