Little prick may cure male cancer

Research has found that a single dose of a chemotherapy drug may be as effective as weeks of radiotherapy in treaing testicular cancers.

According to the Medical Research Council the drug Carboplatin could become the preferred treatment for the most common type of testicular cancer. Eventually allowing surgoens to remove just the affected part of the organ, rather than the entire testicle.

Lead researcher Professor Tim Oliver, from Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, said, "This large trial establishes, after 20 years of research and uncertainty, that one dose of carboplatin in the short term is as safe as radiation and it's less toxic.

"It might also open the way to enabling lumpectomy surgery for stage I seminoma and using chemotherapy for testis conservation."

The study novolved nearly 1500 patients, who were treated with either radiotherapy or carboplatin.

In the three months after starting treatment, patients treated with carboplatin took less time off work and suffered substantially less lethargy than those having radiotherapy.

The carboplatin group also appeared less likely to develop cancers in the remaining testicle. The risk being one in 200 for the carboplatin group, and one in 50 for the radiotherapy group.

Sally Stenning, senior statistician at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit said: "We will need to follow patients for several more years before we can be certain that tumour recurrence has been prevented rather than just delayed, but these results are nevertheless extremely encouraging.

"They are particularly good news for those countries where radiotherapy equipment is scarce."