New treatment giving more life to prostate cancer sufferers
A new "smart bomb" treatment which selects and destroys cancerous areas of bone has been developed to give prostate cancer sufferers more life.
Jim Thomas is the third generation to run the Thomas Jewellery family business, but with prostate cancer spreading aggressively his time is running out.
“I’m looking for something else now to fix the problem and delay my departure.”
Professor Tony Costello believes a new radioactive treatment that is injected into the bloodstream will help patients like Jim, whose cancer has spread to their spine.
“It’s a smart bomb that selects the areas in the bones that are cancerous, and destroys those cancerous areas without affecting other healthy tissue bone marrow or normal bone,” Professor Costello said.
The majority of men who trialled the treatment lived an extra four months, and some lived for an extra one or two years.
All men who participated in the trial experienced less pain.
“I'm running out of options, and this new one that’s on the horizon could give me an extra few months and that would be great,” Jim said.
But currently, patients not involved in trials will have to pay around $45,000 for just six doses, as it’s not listed on the Medicare benefits schedule.
Professor Costello said early detection is the best way of preventing prostate cancer spreading, starting with getting the controversial PSA blood test.
He strongly advises men over 40 to get a PSA blood test, as well as the digital test.
“You still need [to have the digital test], because 20 per cent of prostate cancers don’t have a raised PSA, but you can feel an abnormality in the prostate, so we still need to do digital rectal exams,” Professor Costello explains.
Prostate cancer affects 120,000 Australian men at any one time.
