After nearly 20 years of studying treatments for prostate cancer, the STAMPEDE clinical trial has finished recruiting new participants. Follow-up for the final patients will continue until the last analysis in 2025.
Results from STAMPEDE have directly improved the treatment of advanced prostate cancer in the UK and beyond. The trial’s pioneering methodology also set an example for clinical trials across many disease areas.
Recruitment opened in 2005 in hospitals across the UK and later in Switzerland. Since then, almost 12,000 men who were starting long-term hormone therapy for prostate cancer have taken part, making it one of the largest ever clinical trials in prostate cancer. We are proud that our Salford and Oldham Care Organisations (in collaboration with the Christie NHS Foundation Trust) have both recruited to this crucial study and that Professor Noel Clarke, Consultant Urologist at The Christie and Salford Royal is its co-Principal Investigator. Dr Ruth Conroy is the local PI at Oldham.
Results from STAMPEDE have directly improved the treatment of advanced prostate cancer in the UK and beyond, with the chemotherapy drug docetaxel now offered as part of standard treatment. It has also helped make abiraterone, a type of hormone therapy, more widely available.
STAMPEDE’s finding that radiotherapy improved survival for men whose cancer had spread to only a few places around the body also informed NHS England’s decision to recommend radiotherapy for this group of men.
As a multi-arm, multi-stage (MAMS) platform trial, STAMPEDE tests multiple treatment options at the same time, while comparing them all against one control group who receive standard care. It has also added new treatment comparisons over time and dropped other treatments if they were not effective.
The efficiency of the MAMS design means STAMPEDE has made progress that may have taken many decades in a traditional clinical trial.