- Laser therapy could eradicate the prostate cancer tumours of thousands of men
- Technique could spare many patients the trauma of surgery or radiotherapy
- Nearly half of men with early-stage prostate cancer saw their tumour destroyed
Targeting prostate cancer with bursts of light could eradicate the tumours of thousands of men, a major trial has found.
The technique, in which a light-sensitive chemical is activated by a laser when it reaches cancer cells, could spare many patients the trauma of surgery or radiotherapy.
Nearly half of men with early-stage prostate cancer saw their tumour completely destroyed by the highly targeted technique during trials.
Because the entire blood stream is not being flooded with the active drug, the usual gruelling side effects of cancer medication are vastly reduced and healthy tissue is not damaged.
It is also far less invasive than the alternative options, which incluide either surgery to remove the prostate, or radiotherapy to destroy it, and come with risks of impotence or incontinence.
The results of the study on more than 400 prostate cancer patients by experts at University College London were published in the Lancet Oncology journal.
Half of the men were given the new treatment, and of those 49 per cent showed no signs of the disease two years later – compared to just 13.5 per cent of patients who are cancer free two years after standard treatment. Lead investigator Professor Mark Emberton, consultant urologist at University College London Hospital, said: ‘These results are excellent news for men with early localised prostate cancer, offering a treatment that can kill cancer without removing or destroying the prostate.
‘This is truly a huge leap forward for prostate cancer treatment, which has previously lagged decades behind other solid cancers such as breast cancer.’
The treatment – called ‘vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy’ or the commercial name of Tookad – could be available on the NHS within two or three years.
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel first developed the technique several years ago, after discovering light-sensitive bacteria at the bottom of the ocean.
To survive with very little sunlight, they evolved to convert light into energy with high efficiency.
The Israeli scientists copied this natural phenomenon to develop an artificial compound called WST11, which releases destructive tumour-busting ‘free radical’ molecules when activated by laser light.
They went into partnership with the University College London team, which for the past decade has quietly been testing the drug in a series of clinical trials.
The WST11 drug is injected into the bloodstream for ten minutes, and then the laser is fired for 20 minutes through narrow optical fibres inserted through the skin into the prostate. Now drugs firm Steba Biotech is meeting the European Medicines Agency in April to discuss applying for a safety licence.
Roughly 30,000 men are diagnosed with this localised, low-grade form of the disease in Britain each year. Gerald Capon, 68, was diagnosed in 2011 and was given the new laser treatment, which was a complete success. The lawyer, a grandfather of four from East Grinstead, Sussex, said: ‘The treatment I received changed my life.’