EFN

A team of researchers has found a protein that predicts survival from prostate cancer at diagnosis.

The study at the University of Liverpool involved more than 500 prostate cancer patients and revealed two thirds of cases did not require urgent treatment, due to the absence of a protein (Hsp-27) that indicates progressive disease.

This new research could pave the way for a blood test that could allow doctors to more accurately distinguish between the more common, slow-growing forms of the disease and the more dangerous, faster-growing varieties.

Men who tested positive for Hsp-27 at diagnosis were nearly twice as likely to die from the disease in the next 15 years as those who did not.

Lead author Chris Foster, a Cancer Research UK-funded scientist at Liverpool’s school of cancer studies, said: “Our study shows that this protein marker – currently found in tissue samples – can give us a reliable and accurate indication of whether individual cancers will become aggressive.

“The intent of what we do is rather than try to kill a prostate cancer, as you would a weed with weed killer, to develop therapeutic approaches to alter the behavior of the aggressive cancer cells,” Foster said. The aim would be to move the men with aggressive cancer into the same state as those with non-aggressive cancers. The same approach might be possible with other cancers, such as breast cancer.

Hsp-27 is an important factor of signaling pathways that control the movement of cells around the body. The research also indicates that new drugs could be created to block these signals and halt the spread of prostate cancer cells.