Prostate cancer treatment will change as we incorporate new studies into our clinical practice. One of the major emerging new trends is the earlier use of chemotherapy with androgen therapy (ADT) in men, including men who are still hormone responsive.

This changing trend comes from the results from there pivotal randomized phase III trials: GETUG15, CHAARTED and STAMPEDE.

All three of these studies demonstrated a benefit in progression-free survival with the use of ADT along with docetaxel chemotherapy. However, only two of the studies demonstrated a clinically meaningful overall survival benefit (CHAARTED and STAMPEDE), whereas the GETUG15 study did not demonstrate a major survival benefit.

We now know that chemotherapy with docetaxel is an important option to consider for men who are fit for chemotherapy and who have newly diagnosed metastatic prostate cancer.

This is clinical practice changing to reflect the findings of the research world.

 

Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases advance online publication, 15 March 2016; doi:10.1038/pcan.2016.10.

Prostate cancer and prostatic diseases. 2016 Mar 15

[Epub ahead of print]

R E Miller, C J Sweeney