The Health News Australia May 10 2018

A highly-targeted treatment that uses radioactive material sourced from Australia’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor called LuPSMA could prove life-saving for men with aggressive prostate cancer. The drug therapy has shown to able to kill cancer cells and it also reduced bone pain and improved the quality of life for the patients who participated in the clinical trial.

A highly-targeted treatment that uses radioactive material sourced from Australia’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor could prove life-saving for men with aggressive prostate cancer.
The therapy treatment is called LuPSMA (Lutetium-one seven seven PSMA-six one seven) involves a radioactive molecule that is made to bind to prostate cancer cells. A small clinical trial of this treatment was published in the journal Lancet Oncology has shown to have incredible results.

Thirty patients with advanced disease who had exhausted all other treatment options participated in the second phase of the clinical trial. The drug therapy was able to kill the cancer cells and it also reduced bone pain and improved the quality of life for the patients. Professor Michael Hofman, who led the trial at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre stated: “Our small proof-of-concept trial shows that LuPSMA is highly active in men with aggressive prostate cancers, and it can trigger striking responses in some men.”

After the patients underwent therapy, all except one saw a decline in Prostate Specific Antigen or PSA levels which is a blood biomarker for prostate cancer. Surprisingly, six of the men (twenty percent) had almost undetectable PSA levels. Seventeen out of the thirty men (fifty seven percent) showed that their PSA levels went down by half.  The lowering of PSA levels in men with advanced disease indicates a reduction in cancer activity.