Next Zoom Event
Our next Zoom meeting will be on Thursday 2nd March, 7pm. with our Medical Advisor, Professor Chris Parker, Consultant in Clinical Oncology at Royal Marsden Hospital, who will present the results of RADICALS-HD.

To attend this event please email chair@pcaso.org to ensure that you receive the Zoom link a few days before the meeting.

RADICALS is a clinical trial protocol including a number of randomised comparisons.  The research is taking place in the UK, Canada, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland.  The protocol recruited nearly 4000 men to help answer two important questions for men who have had surgery for prostate cancer:

  • Which is the best way to use radiotherapy after surgery?
  • Which is the best way to use hormone treatment with any radiotherapy given after surgery?

In breast cancer, surgery is followed by radiotherapy and hormone treatment, because the combination is better than surgery alone.  In prostate cancer, surgery alone is a standard treatment, and we are not sure how best to use radiotherapy and hormone treatment after surgery.  The trial was suitable for most men who had a radical prostatectomy.

There are two parts to the study: the Radiotherapy Timing Comparison and the Hormone Duration Comparison.
RADICALS recruited both:

  • men who needed radiotherapy at some point after their operation
  • men for whom the doctors were not sure whether radiotherapy was needed after the operation

Men who needed radiotherapy after their operation could enter into the Hormone Duration Comparison of RADICALS (or “RADICALS-HD”).
Men for whom there was uncertainty about whether radiotherapy was needed straight after the operation could join the Radiotherapy Timing Comparison (or “RADICALS-RT”). If they wished to, they could also join the Hormone Duration Comparison.
Professor Parker will also give some feedback on new drugs that are showing promise in other trials.