Arm 1 of this study will aim to determine the association between hypoxia in the primary tumour with the presence of skeletal metastases and aim to determine if hypoxia is also present in the metastatic sites themselves. Arm 2 will aim to determine the genetic changes associated with hypoxia in cancers that have not spread outside the prostate. Hypoxia presence will be determined by using a hypoxia identifying stain (by giving a patient a tablet of the stain to take orally) and by identifying genomic alterations that are associated with hypoxia. After taking the tablet of the hypoxia marker (Pimonidazole) patients in Arm 1 will receive both a biopsy of the prostate and of one or two of the bone metastases. The presence or not as well as the degree of hypoxia in both sites will be assessed. Patients in Arm 2 will receive pimonidazole prior to a planned radical prostatectomy and the heterogeneity of hypoxia related genetic change throughout the prostate will assessed. Arm 2 patients will undergo MRI hypoxia imaging to validate the detection of pimonidazole marked hypoxic regions with a non-invasive imaging method.
Due to the rapid growth, tumour demand for oxygen is often higher than what can be delivered by the newly forming blood vessels. Tumour adaption to this imbalanced oxygen supply and demand (hypoxia) is associated with poor prognosis and genetic changes (genomic instability) that allow it to become more resistant to chemo- and radiotherapy. Patients with hypoxic tumours therefore die earlier. Limited information is available on hypoxia in newly diagnosed prostate cancer, especially to what degree hypoxia in the prostate tumour is associated with the presence of metastases to bones. The Hyprogen trial is a prospective, non-randomised, exploratory biopsy and imaging biomarker study recruiting 60 patients with prostate cancer to better establish the role of hypoxia in prostate cancer cells evolution and early metastatic spread.