University of Birmingham awards honorary degrees in 2017

One of the largest clinical trials for prostate cancer led by the University of Birmingham has found that adding Abiraterone to hormone therapy at the start of treatment improves survival by 37 per cent. The trial looked at using Abiraterone as an additional treatment in patients with prostate cancer who were about to start long-term hormone therapy. Abiraterone improved survival, according to the results published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. The University of Birmingham's Professor Nicholas James, chief investigator of the Cancer Research UK-funded STAMPEDE trial , said: "These are the most powerful results I've seen from a prostate cancer trial - it's a once-in-a-career feeling. "This is one of the biggest reductions in death I've seen in any clinical trial for adult cancers." Abiraterone, also known as Zytiga, is a hormone therapy. Prostate cancer cells usually depend on testosterone to grow. Standard hormone therapy blocks the action of the male sex hormone, halting the disease.