I was recently reviewing current clinical trials and came across this one for men who have failed chemotherapy, what many of us view as the final treatment for advanced prostate cancer. It provides a potential opportunity to combine two different therapy agents (one old, mitoxantrone; one relatively new, ixabepilone). Both of these chemicals are known to have activity in prostate cancer in vivo (not just in a petri dish or test tube).

The best I can tell is that this trial appears to be available only at the UCSF Helen Diller
Cancer Center at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The clinicaltrial.gov identifier is NCT00331344.

The basic rational for this trial is that drugs used in chemotherapy, such as ixabepilone, mitoxantrone, and prednisone, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells. They work either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. The hope is that giving more than one drug at a time (combination chemotherapy) may kill more tumor cells and better control the cancer

This trial is a combined phase I/II trial designed to study the effects and best dose of ixabepilone and mitoxantrone when given together with prednisone and to see how well they work in treating patients with metastatic prostate cancer that did not respond to hormone therapy and chemotherapy.

You can learn more about this trial by going to: Ixabepilone, Mitoxantrone, and Prednisone in Treating Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

Joel T Nowak MA, MSW