ICR welcomes 'encouraging' prostate cancer treatment research

The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) has described a new study into the treatment of prostate cancer with radium-223 as "very encouraging".

The radioisotope delivered "promising" results in a trial which tested its effectiveness as a hormone-refractory prostate cancer treatment, according to research published in the Lancet Oncology.

Dr Chris Parker, a researcher at the ICR and Royal Marsden Hospital, commented: "I would say that the data based on just 64 patients looks very encouraging, and that larger trials are now needed.

"Larger trials are planned to study the effect of radium-223 on overall survival and on freedom from disease progression," he revealed.

Patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer experience symptoms such as bone pain, spinal cord compression and pathological fracture.

Although the cancer is usually sensitive to hormones to begin with, tumours often start to progress after months or years of hormone treatment.

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