Doctors excited about targeted prostate cancer therapy, but can't prescribe it yet

A Petrolia man was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and has been through many treatments, including surgery. After being stable for several years, a scan last year revealed his cancer had spread and he was enrolled in the trial.

Dale Cousins was thrilled when he saw his body scans from before and after a new prostate cancer treatment.

"(The doctor) said, 'Do you see any difference?'" the 79-year-old from Petrolia, Ont., recalled.

"I said, 'all these spots around my abdomen, they’re gone.'"

Cousins is part of a clinical trial of radioligand therapy, or RLT — a precise targeting of cancer cells with radiation given intravenously. Oncologists say RLT is poised to become a new "pillar" of cancer care, alongside surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. But unlike Cousins, prostate cancer patients who aren't in a clinical trial don't have free access to it.

"We're able to deliver this very specific therapy to specific cells in the body," said Dr. David Laidley, a nuclear oncologist with Western University and London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC).

"We're able to deliver lethal radiation therapy specifically targeted to cancer cells and at the same time generally sparing the normal tissues," said Laidley, who is the principal investigator for the London, Ont., site of the Canada-wide clinical trial comparing RLT to chemotherapy.

Cousins was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and has been through many treatments, including surgery. After being stable for several years, a scan last year revealed his cancer had spread and he was enrolled in the trial.