Clinical Trials and research

Clinical trials are used to try and improve ways of treating cancer or reducing possible side effects of treatment. If you are being treated for penile cancer which has spread to other areas of your body, you may be asked if you wish to take part in a clinical trial involving a combination of treatment, or immunotherapy. If you agree to take part, you can still opt out of the trial in the future without affecting your care or treatment.

Surgery to lymph nodes

Researchers are trying to find out whether surgery to remove
lymph nodes in the abdomen after chemotherapy is better than surgery on its own. Alternatively, whether a different operation to remove lymph nodes in the abdomen is better than standard surgery. Doctors are also interested in whether removing lymph nodes in the groin by keyhole surgery (laparoscopic surgery) has less long-term complications on quality of life, than standard (open) surgery.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses your own immune system to fight cancer. It can cause cancer to shrink or sometimes disappear altogether.

There is a lot of interest and research into whether immunotherapy drugs are more effective than chemotherapy alone, or whether a combination of both treatments may be more effective to treat advanced penile cancer.

Immunotherapy works in a different way to chemotherapy but can still cause side effects including fatigue and flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headaches, muscle and joint pains. It can also have a temporary effect on blood cells in the body which may increase the risk of infection or cause you to feel tired or out of breath.

As well as studying how immunotherapy works, researchers are also interested in how treatment may affect quality of life.

Vaccines

Penile cancer can be caused by infection with certain types of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), commonly HPV 16. Currently a vaccine is available to reduce the risk of HPV in general, but researchers are looking at a vaccine that targets and attack HPV 16 specifically.

Monitoring patients before and after surgery

Treatment for any cancer can cause side effects or complications and can sometimes recur. Doctors think that certain substances in the body called biomarkers may be helpful in predicting these outcomes.

Quality of Life

Treatment for penile cancer can cause life changing physical and psychological side effects. Due to the rarity of penile cancer, large studies into quality of life are not as common as for other more common cancers. Therefore, doctors and researchers are looking at how to create questionnaires to assess long term effects and find out what is important to men who have been treated.

Orchid have also been working with patient advocates to create a patient survey into the experience of men treated for penile cancer, from all around the world.

Further information about this survey and some of the initial results can be found at https://orchid-cancer.org.uk/patient-led-penile-cancer-survey/