New Type of Hormone Therapy Extends Prostate Cancer Patients’ Lives, Study Finds
25 May 2011 - A drug discovered at The Institute of Cancer Research, abiraterone acetate, gave men with advanced prostate cancer an average of four months of extra life, according to Phase III trial results.
The analysis found men with advanced prostate cancer who were treated with abiraterone and the steroid prednisone lived for almost 15 months on average compared with men treated with a placebo and the steroid.
Pain eased during the trial for a much greater number of patients taking abiraterone acetate than the placebo (44 per cent versus 27 per cent in patients for whom this could be measured).
The randomised, double-blind study, led by Professor Johann de Bono, from the ICR and The Royal Marsden, began in May 2008 and was conducted in 147 sites in 13 countries.
The 1,195 men who enrolled in the trial had all stopped responding to standard hormone therapy as well as second-line treatments including the chemotherapy drug docetaxel. The success of an anti-hormone therapy in men with late stage prostate cancer challenges conventional wisdom, opening the door to the development of more second-line hormone treatments for men with advanced prostate cancer.
