Focal therapy halves prostate cancer side-effect risk, 10-year study
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- Imperial College London researchers tracked nearly 3,500 men for 10 years after focal therapy, finding just two deaths from prostate cancer and side-effect risks less than half those of surgery or radiotherapy.
- NICE has not approved focal therapy as a routine NHS treatment due to limited long-term evidence, restricting routine access to 10 centres in England with none elsewhere in the UK — a situation campaigners call a postcode lottery.
- The UK government committed up to £2.8m last month to expand focal therapy provision in England by creating several new centres, Health Innovation Minister Preet Kaur Gill announced.
- Only about 1,000 men a year in the UK currently receive focal therapy despite up to 15,000 who could benefit, and the treatment excludes men whose cancer has spread or sits in multiple prostate regions.
- Prostate Cancer UK said the study should prompt a NICE review, with Amy Rylance arguing that cutting devastating side effects is the key to unlocking a national prostate screening programme.
- A £60m 'Transform' screening trial is testing how to combine rapid MRI scans with low-harm treatments like focal therapy, with all diagnosed men offered the therapy if appropriate.
- Lord Cameron, Jeremy Clarkson, and Sir Chris Hoy have publicly shared their prostate cancer experiences — Cameron and Clarkson via focal therapy, while Hoy has terminal disease — spotlighting access disparities.
Why it matters: NICE withheld routine approval largely because long-term evidence was missing — this 10-year, 3,500-patient study fills that gap and could prompt a review that opens focal therapy to up to 15,000 eligible men annually. Reduced treatment harm also removes the central obstacle to a national screening programme for the 64,000+ men diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in the UK.
