The “monoclonal” antibody selectively targets both early-stage and advanced prostate cancer tumours. As well as attacking the disease directly, it aids the immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells.
In addition, tagging the molecule with a radioactive marker could enable doctors to track spreading prostate cancer, revealing precisely where in the body it is growing.
Tests in mice showed that the antibody, known as F77, wiped out 85% of one type of highly aggressive prostate cancer. Tumours allowed to grow to a large size were also dramatically reduced in volume.
Although the new research is at a early stage, it raises the prospect of a treatment for non-hormone-sensitive advanced prostate cancer for the first time.
Each year about 2500 men in Scotland are diagnosed with prostate cancer, and it is the most common cause of cancer-related male death in the country. Just 34% of those who contract the disease live beyond five years.
Initially, spreading prostate cancer can be kept under control with therapies that prevent tumour growth fuelled by male hormones, but eventually most prostate cancers stop being hormone-sensitive. Few treatment options are then possible and progress of the disease is rapid and lethal.
Up to 45% of patients with local prostate cancer relapse after curative treatments such as surgery and radiotherapy, and their disease begins to spread, or metastasise.
The researchers, led by Dr Mark Greene from the University of Pennsylvania school of medicine in Philadelphia, pointed out that antibodies suitable for use against prostate cancer were rare.
Two under investigation were ineffective against many advanced, non-hormone-sensitive cancers. However, F77 targeted the most aggressive cancers and responded to those both sensitive and insensitive to male hormones.
The antibody was tested on laboratory mice injected with highly aggressive non-hormone-responsive human prostate cancer cells.
The US scientists found that, on its own, F77 induced a degree of “apoptosis”, a natural process of cell suicide that helps keep rogue cells in check in cancer cells. More importantly, it amplified the immune system’s ability to recognise and destroy the cancer.
A “significant reduction” in tumour growth rate was seen in mice injected with F77. After 10 days, tumours in treated mice had grown from 30 cubic millimetres to 79.7 cubic millimetres on average. In untreated mice they grew to 195.8 cubic millimetres.
Dr Sarah Cant, head of policy and campaigns at the Prostate Cancer Charity, said: “What is potentially significant about this study is that the antibody targets both hormone-sensitive and hormone-insensitive prostate cancer.
“Many men with advanced prostate cancer, where the disease has spread beyond the prostate gland, are treated with hormone therapy, a treatment to which they can become resistant.
“The study could possibly yield interesting developments, either as a new way of diagnosing prostate cancer, or as a new therapy that could be used to treat early and late stages of the disease.”
Prostate cancer by numbers
Prostate cancer is the most common cause of cancer death for Scottish men.
2500 Scots are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year.
20% of all cases of cancer diagnosed in Scottish men are of the prostate.
30% of those who are diagnosed with the disease survive for more than five years.
3.9% of Scottish men aged 65 and over suffer from the disease.
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