PPCG

Program Description

The Pan Prostate Cancer Group (PPCG) consists of groups worldwide (UK, Germany, USA, Canada, France, Australia, Finland) that have whole genome, transcriptome and epigenome data from over 2000 prostate tumours linked to rich clinical outcome information. The consortium’s data represent both localised and metastatic prostate cancers that also address differences in ethnicity, DNA repair gene carrier status, common germline variant polygenic risk status and variable age groups. Importantly, long-term outcome (median >5 yrs) is also available on many of these patients and so clinic-genomic correlates can be made to determine novel factors that predict biochemical failure-free, and metastasis-free, survival. The major objective of the consortium is to identify markers that will allow us to distinguish between aggressive and non-aggressive prostate cancer at the time of diagnosis or metastasis. This represents a fundamental problem for around half of the 500,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in Europe and North America each year. Additionally, the data should provide insights into disease mechanism and identify possible new treatment paradigms. 

Clinical questions that the consortium will address are:

1. What is the best multimodal biomarker of aggressive disease?
2. What biomarkers determine response to radiotherapy versus surgery? 
3. Which germline variants, including DNA repair gene mutations and common genetic variation, predict for aggressive versus indolent disease and what are germline-somatic associations in this regard?
4. What determines first echelon oligometastasis and successful treatment response? 
5. What biomarkers are candidates for predictors of response to ADT or drug treatments?

Program Team

Rosalind Eeles

Lead Investigator

Funding Organisations

Further Information

Program Website