Adna is a new blood test that will tell you if Zytiga and Xtandi will or will not treat castration resistant prostate cancer.

Imagine knowing if Zytiga and or Xtandi will fail to help you, before you spend months of time and thousands of dollars trying these drugs out. The test, called AdnaTest Prostate Cancer Panel AR-V7, will detect that resistance.

Zytiga and Xtandi are hormone therapies that block the androgen receptor signaling that is essential to the prostate cancer growth.

About 20 to 40 percent of patients get no benefit from Zytiga and or Xtandi. So, the Adna test could be a wonderful first step for thousands of men around the world who are fighting prostate cancer which no longer responds to first line hormone treatments, such as Lupron or Firmagon.

Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that prostate cancer patients who lacked an androgen receptor variation known as AR-V7 survive longer than those with the variation.  The researchers also discovered that the variation, which lacks a portion of the full androgen receptor, was associated with resistance to Zytiga and Xtandi. The drugs failed to block androgen receptor signaling, allowing prostate cancer cells to keep growing.

So, if your doctor suggests Zytiga or Xtandi for your treatment, ask if you can take the AdnaTest, first. As of April, 2017, the AdnaTest is available only to researchers, but it should be out in the market soon.