What the trial was testing
The trial enrolled 101 patients with prostate cancer. The study was sponsored by InSightec and tracked outcomes across the full group of patients who matched the trial's eligibility profile.
It was mid-stage testing (phase 2/3). Trials at this stage are designed to produce evidence regulators and physicians can act on — not just observations to follow up later.
What the results showed
88% of men had no cancer in the treated area two years after a single ultrasound treatment.
The Lancet. Oncology · 2022 · NCT01657942
These findings — that nearly 9 in 10 men showed no cancer in the treated prostate area two years later — were published in the The Lancet. Oncology and represent the headline result of the study.
Researchers tracked outcomes across 101 patients enrolled in the trial. The result was consistent enough across the group that the team felt confident reporting it.
What this means for patients
For patients with prostate cancer, this result changes the calculus on what to ask their care team about. Whether it changes day-to-day care depends on factors like disease subtype, prior treatments, and where the patient is in their care journey.
What you can do now
This was a mid-stage study testing whether focused ultrasound could treat prostate cancer without removing the entire prostate. The results are promising, but this specific approach is not yet widely available as a standard treatment. If you have intermediate-risk prostate cancer, ask your doctor whether you might qualify for a clinical trial testing focal treatments or what standard options are best for you.
Eligibility for the treatments mentioned above depends on specific test results and clinical history. Bring this summary, the trial name, and your most recent labs or pathology report to your next visit.
Open prostate cancer trials
The PROSECCA Study, Answering New Questions in Prostate Cancer
Nearly half of all cancer patients receive radiotherapy as part of their treatment and although it is effective at destroying cancerous lesions deep within the body, this comes at the cost of damaging healthy, or normal, tissues. With 50% of cancer patients surviving for 10 years or more, these patients can be left with life-changing side effects from their radiotherapy. It is clear that more must be done to limit damage to normal healthy tissue without compromising annihilation of the tumour and curing patients. The key to this is personalising an individual's radiotherapy treatment, in other words rather than assuming that all tumours respond similarly to radiotherapy, the treatment is optimised for an individual. To date, approaches to do this have been restricted to small numbers of carefully selected patients, are inordinately expensive, and not suitable for rolling out into everyday practice across the NHS. There is however another way, namely using Artificial Intelligence (AI) combined with an individual's healthcare record. By linking together large numbers of healthcare records at a national level, combined with the power of AI, the PROSECCA project will transform radiotherapy and cancer care.
Low PSMA SUV Boost (LPS-Boost): Intensified 177Lu-PSMA-617 Treatment for Patients With Metastatic Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer With Low PSMA Expressing Disease
This phase II trial tests how well 177Lu-PSMA-617 works in treating patients with prostate cancer that has spread from where it first started (primary site) to other places in the body (metastatic) and that remains despite treatment (resistant). Lutetium Lu 177 (177Lu), the radioactive (tracer) component being delivered by prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-617, has physical properties that make it ideal radionuclide (imaging tests that uses a small dose tracer) for treatment of metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). 177Lu-PSMA-617 works by binding to prostate cancer cells and inducing damage to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) inside prostate cancer cells. Giving 177Lu-PSMA-617 may improve treatment outcomes for patients with mCRPC.