Around 6,000 men with prostate cancer could benefit from a new treatment combination approved on the NHS. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) published final draft guidance recommending darolutamide with androgen deprivation therapy and docetaxel for men with hormone-sensitive prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.
More than 47,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in England each year and it is estimated that around 6,000 could benefit from the new treatment, Nice said. The therapy works by blocking androgens on prostate cancer cells which stops the cells from growing and dividing. This helps slow down the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.
Data published last year showed the combination cut the risk of death by around a third over the study period compared with a control group. People had longer before their cancer got worse or stopped responding to treatment. The new combination is being made available to patients after a deal was struck between the firm Bayer and the NHS.
Chiara De Biase, director of support and influencing at Prostate Cancer UK, said: "We are extremely pleased that men can now start to benefit from this brand new combination treatment. This is the first triple therapy of its kind to be made available on the NHS for prostate cancer, blazing a trail for more new combination treatments that have the potential to be even more effective in the future. The next step in our work will be to help establish which men most benefit from this approach, so that every man receives precise therapies tailored to his disease."
