Combination therapy improves survival in metastatic prostate cancer

Combination therapy improves survival in metastatic prostate cancer

7 Aug 2015

Newly diagnosed patients with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer managed to survive longer when treated with a combination of two drugs, a new study reveals. To gain this dramatic survival benefit, patients started on the two drugs simultaneously, rather than delaying the second drug until the cancer began to worsen.

These are the results of a clinical trial led by a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientist.

Patients survived more than a year longer

Patients who underwent six cycles of treatment with the chemotherapy drug docetaxel along with a hormone blocker survived for a median of 57.6 months, more than a year longer than the median 44-month survival for men who received only the hormone-blocker, according to the study report.

The immediate combination also prolonged the period before the cancer began to worsen, a median of 20.2 months versus 11.7 months with the single agent.

“A strategy to prolong survival”

The multi-centered, phase 3 trial, involving 790 patients, "is the first to identify a strategy that prolongs survival in men newly diagnosed with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer," said Christopher J. Sweeney, MBBS, of Dana-Farber's Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology.

The new trial was designed and conducted by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group to test Sweeney's hypothesis that adding chemotherapy to hormone treatment from the start would impair the tumor cells' ability to repair damage, delaying the development of resistance.

Some physicians have already adopted the new regimen, as the initial results presented in June 2014, were very favorable.

CareAcross-happy-man2

“A new way to treat prostate cancer patients”

According to study author, the results of the multi-center phase 3 trial should change the way doctors have routinely treated such patients since the 1940s.

It has been standard practice for decades to treat this group of prostate cancer patients with hormone blockers, withholding chemotherapy until the hormone blockers become ineffective, which they do, on average, in about three years.

 

Source: eCancer News

Login to your account

Did you forget your password?