A latest research could help doctors determine to what extent is a person's prostate cancer and what is the most suitable treatment for the condition.
Prostate cancer may actually be five different diseases masked in one, scientists conclude after conducting a study that might help in designing the best treatment for this condition. A team of experts from the Cancer Research U.K. said that they were finally able to categorize the prostate cancer tumors into five distinct groups depending on their composite genes.
The researchers came up with the findings after getting around 100 gene samples from cancerous tissue of 250 men. The scientists explained that this would make it easier for doctors to determine which of the prostate cancers are aggressive or not. This would also help them come up with the most appropriate treatment for the condition.
In the U.K., prostate cancer is one of the leading cancers among men, with close to 42,000 diagnoses every year. If a cancer is found to be an aggressive type, that should require intensive treatment although there are also cancer types that are manageable. In fact, cancer patients could suffer from side effects if they are given aggressive treatments.
According to Dr. Alastair Lamb, the lead researcher who works for the Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Institute, the results of their work were pretty "exciting".
"These findings could help doctors decide on the best course of treatment for each individual patient, based on the characteristics of their tumour," he explained.
Another study published in the journal BMC Medicine, meanwhile, explained that black men are twice at risk of prostate cancer than white men. This result supported previous studies of increased risk for black men. Statistics can tell that one out of every four black men in England are diagnosed with prostate cancer at a certain point of their life.
In the U.S., the rate of cancer death is at 21.4 for every 100,000 men, while 14 percent of the entire male population are at risk of getting diagnosed with prostate cancer, based on a 2010-2012 data.
