Below the Belt Award

When prostate cancer spreads, injections that suppress the male hormone testosterone can control the cancer for some time, but it almost always starts to grow again later. These vulnerable and resistant cells of the cancer are often holding each other in balance; and when a treatment is used it can favour one group of cancer cells over another. This trial is designed to test the idea of taking a standard chemotherapy called docetaxel, and if it works to take breaks off the chemo, using it for long enough to control the cancer, but then stopping and saving it up until later to treat the cancer again (and again… and hopefully again, and again). While every man’s cancer is predicted to eventually become resistant to the chemo treatment, using an effective treatment in more sparingly is hoped to spread the benefit over a longer period of time, without any more side-effects.