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Long-term PR07 results confirm adding radiotherapy to hormone therapy improves survival of men with prostate cancer
Long-term PR07 results confirm adding radiotherapy to
hormone therapy improves survival of men with high-risk prostate
cancer
6 June 2012
Long-term results from the PR07
trial have confirmed that treating men with high-risk prostate
cancer with external-beam radiotherapy in addition to hormone
therapy improves survival, compared to hormone therapy alone. These
results were announced on 5th June 2012 at the ASCO conference in
Chicago.
These findings, based on an average of 8 years of follow-up,
show that adding radiotherapy increases overall survival, and
halves the risk of death from prostate cancer. These results
confirm the findings of interim analysis that was published in the
Lancet last November.
The randomised controlled trial, known in the UK as MRC PR07,
recruited patients between 1995 and 2005. It involved 1,205
patients with locally-advanced prostate cancer (which had grown
outside the surface of the prostate but had not spread further).
Half were treated with hormone therapy and the other half were
treated with a combination of the same hormone therapy and a course
of radiotherapy.
The combination of adding radiotherapy to hormone therapy is an
increasingly common approach to treating locally-advanced prostate
cancer but some men with locally-advanced prostate cancer are still
treated with hormone therapy alone. The evidence now available
shows that radiotherapy (given in addition to hormone therapy) does
improve survival, so this should be the standard of care for these
men.
The PR07 trial registration number is ISRCTN24991896. The trial
was coordinated by NCIC Clinical Trials Group, Ontario, Canada and
MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London, UK.
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