A study to find out men’s attitudes about treatment for prostate cancer that has spread (IP5-MATTER)

303 men completed the study questionnaire. In the questionnaire, they were shown up to 6 cards. Each card had 2 treatment options. They were asked to choose the treatment option that they preferred on each card. 

Everyone had hormone treatment with or without chemotherapy. This is standard treatment for advanced (metastatic) prostate cancer. They then chose from the following additional treatments: 

• radiotherapy to the prostate 
• surgery to the prostate (prostatectomy) 
• high intensity ultrasound (HIFU ) or a treatment that uses extreme cold to destroy prostate cancer cells (cryotherapy) to the prostate

In addition they were offered another treatment to treat the areas of cancer that had spread well beyond the prostate This was radiotherapy that targets cancer anywhere in the body. This is stereotactic radiotherapy .

The team looked at the number of completed treatment options in the questionnaire:

• 303 men (100%) answered one or more treatment choice tasks
• 293 men (97%) answered all 12 treatment choice tasks 

These are the main findings about using extra treatments to control the cancer:

• men were willing to have treatment if it increased the length of time they lived. And if it stopped the cancer growing.
• men accepted having additional treatment that caused a small increase in the risk of not being able to control passing urine. And a small increase in the risk of tiredness. This was only if it increased how long they lived by a certain number of months.

These are the main findings about adding more treatments:

• men chose to avoid surgery to remove the prostate that involved an overnight stay in the hospital and if it would take more than 4 weeks to recover from
• if surgery to remove the prostate was combined with SABR radiotherapy then men would accept this treatment combination above all others
• hospital visits for 4 weeks for radiotherapy didn’t affect treatment preference
• having HIFU or cryotherapy that didn’t need an overnight stay didn’t affect treatment preference

Conclusion 
The study team found that most men were willing to accept additional treatments. This was if it increased the length of time they lived. In particular, they preferred treatments that didn’t cause urinary problems or tiredness (fatigue). 

The team say it is possible to use their study findings to find out men’s preferences for newer treatments. In the future this could help to work out which treatments men are willing to have.

More research is being done to look at these combinations of treatment in detail. You can find more information about the IP2-ATLANTA trial on our clinical trials database. 

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below. 

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Patients’ Preferences for Cytoreductive Treatments in Newly Diagnosed Metastatic Prostate Cancer: The IP5-MATTER Study
M. J. Connor 
European Urology Oncology, 2024. Available online 6 July 2024.

Where this information comes from    
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.