Want your insurance company to pay for next drunk? According to the FDA they in fact might be willing! All kidding aside, the FDA has issued a drug safety communication regarding the risk of intoxication with some of the intravenous generic prostate cancer chemotherapy (docetaxel) formulations containing ethanol. The drugs are marketed as generic docetaxel [...]
The FDA approved Abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) plus prednisone because it demonstrated a survival benefit for men with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) in the pre-chemotherapy setting. Given the newness of the approval of Zytiga in this disease stage there is a lack of data on how Zytiga affects the efficacy of enzalutamide (Xtandi) or [...]
Hormone therapy or Primary androgen deprivation therapy (PADT) is the usual first “go to” therapy for men when they are diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer whether it is a primary diagnosis or the result of a recurrence. The natural progression of the disease is to become unresponsive to the treatment (castrate resistant) leading to a [...]
Xgeva is used in men with advanced and metastatic prostate cancer with bone metastases for the prevention of developing additional skeletal-related events (not to be confused with bone mineral density). In a phase 3 trial, the 147 Study, evaluating denosumab (Xgeva) versus placebo 1,432 men with castrate-resistant prostate cancer demonstrated that Xgeva improved median bone [...]
Now that we have new treatments available to fight advanced, metastatic prostate cancer we need ways to decide on the best treatments given that many of the treatments occupy the same disease space. This is especially important with the soaring costs of many treatments as well as the need to not waste time by giving [...]
Much of my reporting about ASCO 2014 has included only positive studies, but there is always a share of studies and trials that do not prove to be of a direct positive value to men with Advanced Prostate Cancer. Today’s report includes one of these negative reports. Remember, a negative report is as valuable as [...]
Research released at the ASCO meeting in Chicago confirms that regular exercise is a must for men with advanced prostate cancer. It was found that a regular and structured physical exercise program reduces cytokine production which is related to depression and to the inflammatory processes. According to the researchers these factors may impact prostate cancer [...]
In my continuing reports about interesting and pertinent information released at the ASCO 2014 meeting one abstract described a phase 2 trial combining an attack on androgens in metastatic prostate cancer resistant to initial hormone therapy. This proof of concept study showed that combining Enzalutamide (Xtandi) plus abiraterone (Zytiga) drove down testosterone levels and appeared [...]
Current practice has been to immediately begin hormone therapy (ADT) as soon as a man has a bio-chemical (PSA only) relapse. A recent presentation at ASCO 2014 has shown that immediate ADT actually offers little or no survival benefit over deferred ADT to advanced prostate cancer survivors who experience a PSA only relapse after radical [...]
I was asked if there was one item that was a real game changer at the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) meeting for men with advanced prostate cancer. The answer is yes, at this meeting it was formally shown by a study that starting chemotherapy (docetaxel) along with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in some [...]
