A study to find out men’s attitudes about treatment for prostate cancer that has spread (MATTER)

Please note - this trial is no longer recruiting patients. We hope to add results when they are available.

Cancer type:

Prostate cancer

Secondary cancers

Status:

Closed

Phase:

Other

This study is to find out how men decide about what treatment to have when they are first diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

Advanced prostate cancer is cancer that has spread to another part of the body.

More about this trial

Little is known about how men with newly diagnosed advanced prostate cancer choose which treatment they have.

This is important to know because there are many treatments and new ones are becoming available.

In this study researchers use ‘supposed’ (hypothetical) situations with possible treatment choices and possible outcomes of treatment. You choose which treatment you think you’d have based on what is important to you. For each treatment option you will get information about:

how well treatment might work
some of the side effects treatment could cause
the number of hospital visits you’d have

You then fill in a questionnaire about your choice. You do this before you see your doctor.

This doesn’t mean you will have this treatment. Your doctor will talk to you about the possible treatment choices available to you when you see them.

The aim of this study is to find out what is important to men when choosing a treatment that is best for them.

Who can enter

The following bullet points list the entry conditions for this study. Talk to your doctor or the study team if you are unsure about any of these. They will be able to advise you.

Who can take part

You may be able to join this study if all of the following apply. You:

have been diagnosed with (advanced) prostate cancer within 4 months of your doctor checking if you are able to join the study
are up and about for at least half the day but might not be able to work (performance status 0, 1 or 2)

Who can’t take part

You cannot join this study if any of these apply. You:

have cancer that has spread to another part of the body and is getting worse despite having hormone therapy or surgery to remove the testicles (castrate resistant metastatic prostate cancer)
have agreed (consented) to have a treatment to the prostate such as surgery or radiotherapy to control the cancer spread in other parts of the body
have agreed (consented) to have targeted treatment aimed at another part of the body where the cancer has spread to such as surgery or radiotherapy

Trial design

The study team need 300 men to take part.

You fill in a questionnaire online or in person before you see your doctor. This takes about 30 minutes.

The questions are about 3 different ‘supposed’ or ‘made-up’ (hypothetical) situations. In each situation you must make a choice of treatment. Each situation has different possible outcomes of the treatments you can chose from. For example each option gives details about:

how well treatment might work
some of the side effects treatment could cause
the number of hospital visits you’d have

The treatment choices are:

standard treatment
standard treatment followed by either surgery, radiotherapy or both (radical therapy)
standard treatment followed by high intensity ultrasound (HIFU) or cryotherapy (ablation therapy)
standard treatment followed by specialist radiotherapy that targets cancer anywhere in the body. This is stereotactic radiotherapy.

Standard treatment
Standard treatment is hormone therapy. You have this either as a tablet, injection or both.

In addition to this your doctor may offer you either:

docetaxel (Taxotere) a chemotherapy drug
or other tablets such as abiraterone acetate, enzalutamide or apalutamide

Radical therapy
Radical therapy is either surgery to remove the whole prostate or radiotherapy to the whole prostate (external radiotherapy).

Surgery to remove the prostate is a prostatectomy. The surgeon removes the whole prostate. You can have open surgery or keyhole surgery. Your doctor will talk to you about what type of surgery might be best for you.

Or you can have external radiotherapy to the prostate. Before starting treatment, the radiotherapy team need to plan where to give the radiotherapy. For this you go to the hospital for a planning appointment. You have radiotherapy every day from Monday to Friday with a break at weekends. Each treatment takes about 10 minutes. You have it for 4 to 6 weeks.

Ablation therapy
HIFU uses sound waves to heat the cancer cells in the prostate. The heat destroys the cancer cells. You have an ultrasound probe put into your back passage (rectum). The doctor uses the probe to target the cancer cells and to make the sound waves that heat and kill the cancer cells.

Cryotherapy uses extreme cold to destroy the cancer cells. You have an ultrasound probe put into your back passage. The doctor uses the probe to see where the cancer cells are in the prostate. Special cryotherapy needles are placed through the skin of the perineum (the area of skin behind the testicles). These needles are hollow. A gas is passed through the needles which freezes and kills the cancer cells.

HIFU and cryotherapy are done as a day case, so you shouldn’t need to stay overnight. You have a general anaesthetic Open a glossary item so you don’t feel anything. Both treatments take about 3 hours.

Specialised Radiotherapy
Specialist radiotherapy targets cancer anywhere in the body. This is also called stereotactic radiotherapy. It is similar to external radiotherapy and involves going to the hospital for a planning appointment. However, you may be required to attend the hospital every other day for one or two weeks.

Please note that these hypothetical treatment choices are just for this study only. Your doctor will talk about your possible treatment choices when you see them.

It is very likely these treatment choices and risks will differ from those presented in the questionnaire. You should not be concerned by this and chose your individual treatment based on a discussion with your own doctor.