University of Birmingham Academic wins major Book Prize

Treating the prostate with radiotherapy alongside standard treatment led to a 11 per cent* increase in survival for some men with advanced prostate cancer, show the results from a study carried out in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and funded by Cancer Research UK. These findings, from one of the largest ever clinical trials for the disease, are being presented at the 2018 ESMO Annual Meeting in Munich, Germany and published in The Lancet , today. Previously, it was unclear if there was any benefit treating the prostate directly with radiotherapy, if the cancer had already spread. This research helps answer that question and has implications beyond prostate cancer. The findings from the STAMPEDE trial could be practice changing and suggest radiotherapy, alongside hormone therapy, should become the standard of care for a group of men with advanced prostate cancer, affecting thousands every year in the UK. This part of the STAMPEDE** study, based at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at University College London, involved around 2,000 men who had advanced disease. Half were given standard treatment while the other half received standard treatment and radiotherapy to the prostate - the site of the primary tumour***.