Some prostate cancers are tigers others are pussycats knowing which is which could save lives
Scientists with Cancer Research UK have determined that prostate cancer is actually five distinct diseases.
Taken as a whole, those five types accounted for more than 1.1 million cancer diagnoses in 2012 — representing around 8 percent of all new cancer cases and 15 percent in men, according to World Cancer Research Fund International.
The researchers believe this new insight could have major implications in terms of choosing treatments. For example, treating aggressive tumors with greater toxicity versus a more subtle approach toward treating less aggressive cases.
"The challenge in treating prostate cancer is that it can either behave like a pussycat - growing slowly and unlikely to cause problems in a man's lifetime - or a tiger - spreading aggressively and requiring urgent treatment. But at the moment we have no reliable way to distinguish them," said professor Malcolm Mason, prostate cancer expert at Cancer Research UK, in a statement.
Distinguishing the pussycats from the tigers would be game changing, according to Mason.
The researchers looked at samples of healthy and cancerous prostate tissue from over 250 men. By looking for abnormal chromosomes and measuring the activity of 100 different genes linked to the disease they were able to create five distinct groups with their own characteristic gene fingerprint.
While the analysis was better at predicting which cancers were likely to be more aggressive than other tests currently used by doctors, such as the PSA test and Gleason score, the findings need to be tested in a larger pool of patients.
"The next step is to confirm these results in bigger studies and drill down into the molecular 'nuts and bolts' of each specific prostate cancer type," said Dr. Alastair Lamb, study author and Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute scientist. "By carrying out more research into how the different diseases behave we might be able to develop more effective ways to treat prostate cancer patients in the future, saving more lives."
These findings were published in the journal, EBioMedicine.
