A major advance in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer in Australian men has been announced at an international conference on the disease on the Gold Coast.

The CellSearch machine, the first of its kind in Australasia, tests for circulating tumour cells which detach from solid tumours and enter the blood stream with the potential to spread cancers to other parts of the body.

The conference was told the machine, as well as a new multidisciplinary team clinic at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH), represent a major leap forward in fighting the prostate cancer.

Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Chair of Prostate Cancer, Professor Coleen Nelson, said the equipment would be a national resource for monitoring treatment response and predicting survival in patients with metastatic prostate, breast and colourectal cancer.

"Scientifically, the CellSearch facility will enable us to capture prostate cancer cells and investigate them at a molecular level," said Professor Nelson.

"It will be used in clinical trials of prostate cancer treatments and to monitor the treatment of cancer in individual patients from around Australia."

Queensland Health Minister Paul Lucas told the conference, organised by the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, the new multidisciplinary team clinic at the PAH was the first of its kind in Australia, where specialists from several disciplines could work together on a patient's needs.

"In many ways we're the victims of our own success," Mr Lucas told reporters.

"We know prostate cancer increases with age and our better health system means people are living longer and longer, so we know in the future for us blokes we'll need more and more support for prostate cancer.

"Technology is going our way, but on the other hand, as people get older, it places more demands (on our health services) in terms of other cancers coming up in increasing rates."

PAH Director of Urology Dr SimonWood said the arrival of the new technology would stimulate a whole range of new research now that circulating tumour cell numbers could be measured.

"This will be particularly relevant for men receiving novel treatment through our multidisciplinary clinic for advanced prostate cancer and clinical trials unit," he said.

"We also hope it will help decision making in some men with higher risk prostate cancer."

Prostate cancer affects one in nine men and kills over 3000 Australian men every year - the most common cancer in Australian men and the second most common cause of male cancer deaths.