Progress on Prostate Cancer

It’s not one disease - it’s two

A UEA discovery that affects everything the world knows about prostate cancer.

Every year, across the world, more than four million people receive a new prostate cancer diagnosis. For some, the news comes too late. For the ‘lucky’ others surgery and radiotherapy can halt the cancer but leave survivors with life-changing side effects including impotence and incontinence.

For all these individuals and their families, UEA’s research into what causes prostate cancer, how to prevent it, and how to treat it better, is vital.

Innovative, meticulous work by the University’s researchers is bringing ground-breaking discoveries. They include the recent finding that bacteria are implicated in the development of some prostate cancers, and an essential breakthrough announced early in 2024: prostate cancer is two different diseases – one more aggressive than the other – with different developmental pathways and prognoses. This transforms everything the scientific community understands about prostate cancer.

We are tantalisingly close to being able to offer patients new tests, and we couldn’t have got to this point without philanthropic support.

Most cases of prostate cancer are harmless.

Only 10-15% of those diagnosed with prostate cancer each year have a type that needs treatment. But because the current PSA blood test can’t distinguish who they are, almost everyone who tests positive is offered life-altering surgery and radiotherapy.

As with any cancer, early diagnosis improves outcomes. That’s why we were grateful when Olympic medal-winning cyclist Sir Chris Hoy added his voice to calls for testing at a younger age; his own diagnosis at just 48 has sadly come too late.

UEA’s researchers advocate better testing that is easier on patients, and we have two new methods almost ready to roll out to patients.

PUR Test

The Prostate Urine Risk (PUR) Test, developed by Professor Cooper and his team, will be sent to patients’ homes so they can simply provide a urine sample and return it for analysis. It can pick up cancers early, and indicate whether a cancer is low-risk, intermediate-risk or aggressive.

Tiger Test

If patients do need a biopsy our new Tiger Test will analyse samples looking for specific biomarkers, including one known as DESNT. DESNT in the sample suggests an aggressive ‘tiger’ type of cancer is developing. Crucially, the Tiger Test can tell how much of the marker is present; missing a small amount could be highly significant.

The researchers’ work is painstaking. In the early stages they analysed every sample 1,000 times across three different machine set-ups, and that has helped them develop a framework that now allows them to run testing at scale.

“In the early days, when some of the biomarkers seemed to be working Colin always said, ‘check that five more times!”

Dr Rachel Hurst, Senior Research Associate at Norwich Medical School

Final push

Soon, we will be ready to submit our tests for national accreditation. That process takes about a year and then they can be licensed to the NHS and other healthcare providers here and around the world.

Philanthropy is vital in helping us get there. While big research funders support big ideas and initial research it’s harder to find support for things like consumables and for late-stage necessities such as lab improvements that see projects over the last hurdles. So we’re indebted to our donors, including The Bob Willis Fund, set up in memory of the late, great fast bowler. Bob died of prostate cancer aged just 70 after more than three years of gruelling treatment. His memorial fund has supported UEA to set up the diagnostic lab to take the PUR and Tiger Tests through to accreditation.

As well as research, The Bob Willis Fund works to raise awareness, which is essential. That’s why we’ve taken to digital, press and broadcast media to keep the public aware of the huge changes that are afoot in our fight against this killer disease.

“The opportunity to transform diagnosis only exists because donors back us through every stage of test development.”

Colin Cooper, Professor of Cancer Genetics, Norwich Medical School

A few months ago BBC TV’s Look East magazine programme explored the work we’re doing and what it means for improving healthcare.

The three-minute segment celebrated the progress being made in the research labs and the fact that philanthropy is making it possible. Final word goes to reporter Alex Dunlop:

“What happens here could resonate worldwide.”

Reshaping the future of patient care

In the next year or so, we need help to fund:

• Lab consumables

• Accreditation submission costs

• Ongoing machine servicing

• PhD studentships

This work would not have been possible without the generous support of our funders, collaborators, and partners, whose contributions have been crucial throughout every phase of our research.

If used for screening the current standard test, the PSA, would only save 17 lives for every 315 ultimately harmless cancers it diagnosed.

We are so close now to changing the face of prostate cancer testing.