Movember-funded testicular cancer project hits another milestone

We’re proud to announce that a major project, partially funded by your donations, has hit a crucial milestone in a bid to discover the best way of treating men with aggressive testicular cancer.

The TIGER trial — a major international collaboration between research teams in the US, Europe and Australia — has now officially completed recruitment, with 420 men and boys from all over the world participating in this important trial.

Movember’s funded the study's sponsors in Europe (via the EORTC group) and in Australia (via another group called ANZUP).

Over half of the trial participants came from Europe — 254 men and boys from Germany, Italy, the UK, France, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, and Ireland agreed to take part.

Although testicular cancer is a highly treatable disease, for a small number of men treated with chemotherapy, it returns and requires further treatment.

Researchers leading the TIGER trial aim to once and for all answer the question of whether there is a difference in outcome between men treated with conventional chemotherapy; and those who receive high-dose chemotherapy combined with stem cell treatment.

TIGER trial participants are allocated to one of two treatment groups. One group receives conventional chemotherapy; the second group are given high-dose chemotherapy with a stem cell treatment. They are then followed up for several years to compare the impact of these treatments on their testicular cancer.

Sam McKeown, Movember’s Director of Global Clinical Trials, said: “This is a huge achievement — the TIGER trial is a complicated international effort and Movember has provided crucial support to the European and Australian contribution.

“This trial aims to help researchers to better understand the underlying biology and optimal treatments for men who have already had chemotherapy for testicular cancer, but whose cancer returns.

“This is a rare outcome of an already rare disease, so it requires a truly international effort. Ultimately, the data generated by this important trial will tell clinicians what the best treatment is for these men.

“Now we need to wait a few more years for follow-up data to be acquired and the study data to be analysed.”

Funding for the TIGER trial was provided by the National Cancer Institute in the US and Canada, as well as research bodies in France, UK, and Italy. The North American co-ordinating group for this study is the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.