Dr. Thomas Kislinger
Dr. Paul Boutro
One of the biggest challenges when treating prostate cancer is figuring out which men need treatment right away, and which can be monitored through
active surveillance – allowing many to safely avoid
side effects such as urinary and sexual dysfunction.
Drs. Paul Boutros and Thomas Kislinger are close to identifying which type of tumours patients have. Armed with this knowledge, doctors could then treat patients who need attention immediately, and safely monitor those whose cancers are not growing.
The research team used tumour samples from 80 patients, one of the most comprehensive data sets ever studied, from the Canadian Prostate Cancer Genome Network (
CPC-GENE), funded in part by Prostate Cancer Canada.
Using these samples, they came to understand how the genetic makeup of tumours tells the cells to act. They also found a powerful marker that will better indicate if the cancer is aggressive or not.
“Localized prostate cancer is an urgent priority for researchers, especially to identify new drug targets and markers to guide treatment choices based on how the disease will progress,” says Dr. Boutros. “It’s especially important to determine this before the tumour has spread and treatments have a better chance of succeeding.”
Their immediate hope is that the markers they discovered will soon be turned into diagnostic tests that give powerful information for physicians to make better decisions.
“This work started with a Discovery Grant, linked to a Dr. Boutros’ Rising Star Award, from Prostate Cancer Canada and the
Movember Foundation,” says Dr. Kislinger. “Those beginnings gave rise to this collaborative work that will have a major global impact.”