There's some good news for prostate cancer patients as a team of medical researchers have administered a trial for a new kind of treatment using sea bed bacteria. The trial has shown some promise after half of the patients involved in the trial has shown complete remission.
The study, which was published in the Lancet Oncology, was conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. It involved 413 men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Half of them were injected with a light sensitive drug into their bloodstream. Then, they added a drug that destroys the tumor tissue while leaving the healthy ones unharmed.
The deep sea bacteria comes from the deepest part of the ocean where light does not exist literally. However, it becomes toxic when exposed to light. Using this bacteria, the doctors inserted ten fiber optic lasers through the patients' perineum and straight into the cancerous gland. When they switch the laser on, the light triggers the toxicity of the bacteria in drug form and attacks the cancer cells.
What's significant about this new therapy was that its effect and discomfort is only short-lived compared to what is being used by doctors nowadays. The most popular prostate cancer therapy causes lifelong erectile problems while some patients suffer incontinence.
On the other hand, patients given this breakthrough therapy only suffered short-term erectile and urinary discomfort which can last up to three months. After that time period, everything goes back to normal.
Moreover, those who received the groundbreaking light therapy have three times lower the risk of the cancer progressing to a more dangerous stage. This breakthrough therapy brings hope and assurance to men all over the world since one in 7 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer according to the American Cancer Society.
Dr. Matthew Hobbs from the Prostate Cancer UK said that the next big challenge in this study will be which among the men will wait and see as well as what patients will receive this type of therapy and who will have more invasive treatments.
