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Prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in South Australian males. That’s why, thanks to your generosity, Cancer Council SA’s Beat Cancer Project is funding vital prostate cancer research like Associate Professor Luke Selth’s, from Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute and Freemasons Centre for Male Health and Wellbeing, which aims to develop new and more effective treatments for advanced prostate cancer.

A/Prof Selth and his team at Flinders University are passionate about finding better treatments for the more than 2,000 South Australian men diagnosed with prostate cancer every year.

“Currently the standard treatment for advanced prostate cancer is hormonal therapy, which deprives the tumours of androgens that are required for tumour growth. Hormonal therapies have been effective in increasing survival rates but cannot cure prostate cancer and are associated with significant side-effects,” A/Prof Selth said.

“All men will eventually relapse, with a disease state that we refer to as castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), which unfortunately can’t be cured.

“We desperately need new treatment options for CRPC to decrease the number of men killed by this disease which is currently estimated at more than 3,300 Australian men per year.”

The Beat Cancer Project has funded three of A/Prof Selth’s prostate cancer research projects, which aim to develop better and more effective treatments for prostate cancer. One of these research projects is specifically looking at how immunotherapy can be used as a prostate cancer treatment.

Immunotherapy harnesses the body’s own immune system to treat cancer, which has been successful in treating a range of cancer types. However, to date, it has had little impact in treating prostate cancer.

“We believe that immunotherapy is a really important way forward in developing a curative therapy for prostate cancer,” A/Prof Selth said.

“Our aim is to find ways to make prostate tumours more sensitive to a specific type of immunotherapy. We hope that this will eventually lead to an entirely new treatment for advanced prostate cancer that will save lives.”

Through your support, cancer research like A/Prof Selth’s can make a real difference to the future of cancer treatment and give more Australians diagnosed with cancer the precious gift of time. Learn more about how you are supporting life-saving cancer research here.

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