What is the Actual Clinical Benefit of Using Low Dose Prednisone Along with Prostate Cancer Chemotherapy with Docetaxel?

Randomized trials have clearly demonstrated that when low dose Prednisone (P) is combined with docetaxel chemotherapy (D) to treat prostate cancer there is a survival benefit. What is the role of the prednisone and does it actually provide any additional benefit to the docetaxel treatment itself? To answer this question a retrospective study was performed [...]

Combination Chemotherapy And ADT In Hormone Sensitive Prostate Cancer Betters Survival and the Quality Of Life

There is a paradigm shift happening around us in the clinical care of men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. We now know that survival is better when docetaxel chemotherapy is added to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT), but there have been and still remains concerns about the toxicity of the docetaxel. Recent findings from a new study, [...]

NHS (UK) Fast Tracks Chemotherapy for Men Who Are Still Hormone Sensitive

One of the frustrations faced by men in the UK has been the Guideline that restrictes the use of chemotherapy (docetaxel) to only men who have already failed hormone therapy (ADT). This Guideline directly contradicts the current, cutting edge evidence that, in certain circumstances, earlier chemotherapy increases survival. The good news is that the NHS [...]

Data Supports A Radical Prostatectomy Option for Some Localized Advanced Prostate Cancer

I have often had men recently diagnosed with advanced, metastatic prostate cancer call me and ask if surgery makes any sense for them to consider. I have never been sure how to respond given that their cancer is known to be already out of their gland. In response to this common question, researchers from the [...]

Using Low Dose Prednisone in First-Line Docetaxel Treatment Improves The Quality of Life (QoL) For Men With Prostate Cancer

Clinical trials are used to both demonstrate that a drug or treatment has efficacy (extends life or improves the quality of life). They also are used as the vehicle to obtain approval from the governmental body responsible for monitoring and approving their use. How the trial is set up will directly dictate the eventual approved [...]

Chemotherapy After Radium-223 Appears to be Safe in Men with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer

  Understanding how to best sequence and combine our new drugs to treat advanced prostate cancer includes the most discussed issue, efficacy. We want to know if a special order or a special combination of the approved drugs will nake a difference in both our quality of life (QoL) as well as how survival. Often [...]

Radium-223 When Given In Combinations May Improve Survival in mCRPC

As I have said before, the next big step in the clinical care of men with prostate cancer will be in not in the development of a new drug, but in our growing knowledge of how to sequence and combine our new drugs. Today’s post provides just one example of this new type of breakthrough [...]

Is There A Clinical Benefit Derived From Using Low Dose Prednisone With First Line Docetaxel Treatment In Men With Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer?

There have been some randomized studies that have shown that when prednisone is used in combination with docetaxel (chemotherapy) there is an improved survival in men who have metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). To add to our understanding of the possible clinical value of this combination of drugs some researchers have retrospectively evaluated whether the [...]

How We Know What Drugs Might Work In Combination With Each Other – Bringing The Next Big Breakthrough in Prostate Cancer Treatment

Many of the posts that I have written discussed the need for evaluating our current advanced prostate cancer drugs in both combinations and their sequencing. We have a number of new drugs, but we don’t understand how best to sequence them, or whether or not some drugs would do better and extend life by taking [...]

Our New Therapies and the Development of Cross Resistance to these Drugs

Men with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) have become fortunate over the last few years as there we now have a number of new drugs available which can extend our life and can also have some palliative effects. However, as we have more treatments being approved, we find that we are faced with a [...]

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