THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- While the investigational drug cabazitaxel (Cbz) prolongs survival in men with metastatic prostate cancer progressing after treatment with a docetaxel-containing regimen, hormone therapy plus radiation improves survival and reduces recurrence in men with intermediate-risk early-stage prostate cancer, according to two studies presented at the 2010 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, held from March 5 to 7 in San Francisco.
In the Treatment of Hormone-Refractory Metastatic Prostate Cancer Previously Treated with a Taxotere-Containing Regimen (TROPIC) study, A. Oliver Sartor, M.D., of the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, and colleagues randomized 755 men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) to either Cbz plus prednisone (CBzP) or mitoxantrone plus prednisone (MP). After 12.8 months, the researchers found that patients receiving CbzP showed a statistically significant improvement in overall survival as compared to those receiving MP, with a median survival of 15.1 months in the CbzP group and 12.7 months in the MP group.
In another large phase III Radiation Therapy Oncology Group study, David G. McGowan, M.D., of the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, Canada, and colleagues randomized 1,979 patients to radiation therapy alone (RT) or to four months of total androgen suppression (H+RT) starting eight weeks prior to RT. The researchers found that the estimated overall survival at 12 years was 51 percent in the H+RT group and 46 percent in the RT group, with those with intermediate-risk disease experiencing the greatest benefit and those with low-risk disease experiencing no benefit.
"The addition of four months of total androgen suppression given prior to and during RT significantly improved overall survival in patients with T1b to T2b carcinoma of the prostate with prostate-specific antigen ≤20," McGowan and colleagues write.
Several authors of the TROPIC study reported financial, consulting and employment relationships with Sanofi-Aventis, the manufacturer of Cbz.
Abstract - Sartor
Abstract - McGowan
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