Where your money goes

Your money goes to helping us beat prostate disease. We fund research projects. We train medical professionals. We fund support groups. We do this with your help and support.

Research

We fund research and promote international collaboration into all three prostate diseases: benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), prostate cancer and prostatitis. Two examples of research projects we have funded are listed below.

Dr Alastair Lamb and Mr Motaz Quandon from the University of Edinburgh looked at whether the inflammation of cells found in prostate biopsy were an indication that BPH would progress and require further drug treatment or surgery later in the patient’s life. They found that there was no link but this helps our understanding of the disease.

Dr Dmitry Pshezhetsky at Imperial College London looked into a way of inhibiting Sphingosine Kinase-1 (SK-1) which has a key role in cancer development and is associated with advanced stage disease and mortality. Prohibiting SK-1 with drugs leads to a four-fold decrease in the effective dose of docetaxel (the only effective chemotherapy available) which might increase tolerability for the patient and reduce chemotherapy toxicity – one of the main side effects of the treatment.

Education

Your money goes to help fund our Masterclasses in prostate disease and educate those that are the first point of contact for public health. By making sure more GPs and nurses are aware of the latest thinking in prostate disease, more men can be treated at an earlier, easy to treat stage. It's widely considered that men are not as proactive with their own healthcare but we need to make sure that once they see their doctor they are given the most appropriate treatment. Since Prostate UK started the Masterclass programme in 2006, we have trained over 3,000 primary healthcare workers and, judging by the feedback we get, we are making a difference to people's lives.

Training grants

Training urologists and surgeons isn't cheap. And where the national public health budget struggles to give the next generation of urology specialists the support and training they need, we can help. As an example, we have sent surgeons and whole teams from hospitals to train in robotic surgery in countries where the level of expertise in these techniques is more advanced so they can come back and offer the best treatment to men in Britain.

Support grants

Through your donations, we help fund events and infrastructure of patient support groups. We are particularly proud to be working with the Prostate Cancer Support Federation - an umbrella organisation of UK patient-led prostate cancer support groups - by funding their local and national conferences. These events, which are open to men with prostate cancer and all their family, provide information on all aspects of the disease and detail new developments in research. Recent speakers have included urologists, GPs and researchers such as Professor Ken Muir.

Restricted funding: tailoring your donation

At Prostate Action we pride ourselves on our transparency and our ability to work with donors. We have a number of supporters who give towards specific projects, and are able to easily restrict donations towards the different aspects of our work.