What do advanced prostate cancer survivors do once we fail chemotherapy? At this time there are no FDA approved next steps other than to take some time off and pray that restarting chemotherapy will again help us. To put in another way, we wait to die.
There is a huge need to find additional strategies and treatments. We need new and better treatments; just sitting around waiting to die is not an acceptable solution! Finding these alternative solutions will take our actively participating in clinical trials. Without our participation in these trials there will not be any progress.
Dr. William L. Dahut, who is the Principal Investigator of a trial at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is currently recruiting survivors with prostate cancer who have failed taxane therapy (chemotherapy). The trial is known as Prostate Cancer – NCI-08-C-0074 is a phase II trial.
To see additional details, including a summary of eligibility criteria, treatment plan, and information on how to contact Dr. Dahut and his staff directly click here. You may also call the Clinical Trials Referral Office of the NCI at 1-888-NCI-1937 (1-888-624-1937) to inquire about referring a patient to this trial.
Briefly here is a summary of the trial procedure.
• Patients receive oral satraplatin once daily on Days 1–5 and oral prednisone twice daily on Days 1–35
• Courses repeat every 35 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity
• Blood samples are collected for genotyping of ERCC1 and other gene polymorphisms via polymerase chain reaction
What do you have to lose?
Joel T Nowak MA, MSW
Dear Joel,
What chance an Indian has of Joining this trail?
How do I go about it?
Can they send Strataplatin here in Hyderabad, India?
with Kindest Regards,
Pradeep
Pradeep,
I can not answer that question, but if there is an institution in India that might wish to participate they would have to work an arrangement with the sponsors. In many cases pharma does want to expand the scope of clinical trial subjects to include men from different countries and racial backgrounds.
As far as participating in the trial as it is currently structured, I believe that this could not happen. When subjects are admitted into a trial the sponsor is acutely aware and concerned that some subjects may not complete the program for non-medical reasons. Subjects who are physically remote from the trial centers are more likely to not complete the protocol or the required clinical monitoring.
Joel