Australian research could help stop spread of prostate cancer

Tracking and stopping the spread of prostate cancer is a step closer, an Australian-led team researching the world's second most common cancer announced on Thursday.

Behind melanoma, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer, and in 2012 it killed more than 307,000 people worldwide.

The team, based at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, have performed real-time tests on cancer patients to determine that metastatic cancers "re-seed" in other parts of the body, spreading tumors and speeding up the devastating effect of the crippling condition.

Professor Anthony Costello said that current treatment of prostate cancer was on the right track, and the research, published in medical journal Nature Communications, would help develop more effective treatment.

"What it tells us is that it's very important to remove the primary cancer if you can, if you don't take it out it could be re- seeded from another metastasis," he told News Corp on Thursday.

"What we are doing now is saying if you have limited metastasis (spread of cancer cells), we can take the primary cancers out and shrink those remaining metastasis by surgically removing lymph nodes or by stereostatically radiating the site."

Costello said the research also uncovered a "genetic signature" that some metastatic cancers cells share, which could mean cancers that are more likely to spread could be removed a lot earlier in the treatment phase.

In the future, the aim is to detect metastatic cancer cells long before they spread, lowering the chance of the tumors turning lethal.

These discoveries open the door for more effective tumor removal procedures, even if the cancer is in advanced stages.

In the past, prostate cancer patients were often told there was no effective treatment.

The research was conducted over a decade, using live cancer cells from prostate cancer patients throughout Victoria. Endi