March 5th, 2010
A new drug, awaiting FDA approval, is showing promise for lengthening the lives of men who have advanced prostate cancer and have run out of treatment options.
In a recent study, researchers gave an experimental drug to men with prostate cancer which had spread throughout their entire bodies. Those who were given the drug, called cabazitaxel, lived an average of just over 15 months. In comparison, those who were given standard chemotherapy treatment lived an average of nearly 13 months.
“These are impressive results. Advances in cancer are almost always incremental,”
While a difference of only two to three months may not seem like much, study head Oliver Sartor, MD, a cancer researcher at Tulane Cancer Center in New Orleans, emphasizes the importance of the drug. “These men really don’t have other alternatives,” he said. “They are only expected to live about a year. Cabazitaxel more than doubled the number of men that lived for at least two years.”
The study looked at 755 men in the U.S. whose prostate cancer had continued to spread despite treatment with the chemotherapy drug Taxotere. Around half of the participants were given cabazitaxel intravenously every three weeks.
The study lasted for five years, and those given cabazitaxel were found 30% less likely to die than men not given the drug. Researchers also noticed that men given cabazitaxel remained cancer-free for a longer period of time. The major side effects of the drug included fever accompanied by a decline in white blood cell counts (affecting 7.5% of men), severe nausea (affecting 6%) and severe fatigue (affecting 5%).
As many as 20,000 men in America would benefit from this drug each year, Sartor concluded. Researchers are also planning to test cabazitaxel in men with earlier prostate cancer.
For more information about prescription drugs used to treat and prevent prostate cancer, visit http://www.orderonlinedrugs.com
