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Stuart Fraser
Stuart is now taking one of the treatments at home
Men with advanced prostate cancer can take highly specific hormonal therapies at home instead of going to the hospital for chemotherapy, says NHS England.
Experts say it will ease pressure on the NHS, which wants all urgent and essential cancer treatments to continue during the coronavirus pandemic.
The drugs are also smarter, kinder treatments and could extend the lives of many more patients, they say.
This precision medicine approach is already used to treat other types of cancer.
‘Huge shock’
Diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in February, Stuart Fraser, 66, of Ashtead, Surrey, will now take four enzalutamide tablets daily.
“Being diagnosed was a huge shock,” he said.
“What made it even more worrying was that, due to the coronavirus, I was told that I was unable to receive the usual chemotherapy treatment, which would have affected my immune system.”
“When I heard about other possible treatments like abiraterone and enzalutamide, I launched a petition to try to make sure that men like me could get it.
“That is why it is great news that now nobody will be in the same position as me at the beginning of all this.”
Enzalutamide blocks the effect of the hormone testosterone on prostate cancer cells, preventing them from growing.
Enzalutamide-intolerant patients will receive abiraterone, which stops the production of testosterone in the body.
Until now, in England and Wales, the drugs were available only to patients for whom other hormone therapy had stopped working, although abiraterone was recommended in Scotland as a first-line treatment earlier this year.
Doctors can now prescribe them when a patient is first diagnosed.
‘Hospitals in distress’
Professor Nick James of the Cancer Research Institute in London, who has conducted major trials of drugs targeting prostate cancer, said: “I am pleased and relieved that many more men are now benefiting from hormonal therapies. targeted from the time they are first diagnosed
“It will greatly reduce the risk of exposing vulnerable patients to the coronavirus and lighten the burden on our hospitals in distress.”
“Men can take their tablets at home and their GP does a blood test.
“And unlike chemotherapy, enzalutamide and abiraterone have no significant effect on patients’ immune systems.”
National Cancer Clinical Director Professor Peter Johnson said: “The NHS has been working hard to ensure the safety of cancer patients during the pandemic.
“Moving from chemotherapy to hormonal treatments for prostate cancer is just one example of how we are adapting our approach to help thousands of cancer patients across the country continue to access the care they need.”
