Some good news for my neighbors immediately to my north. Enzalutamide (Xtandi) has received Health Canada's approval for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistand advanced prostate cancer in the post chemotherapy phase. This means that any man with castrate resistant prostate cancer, once they have received taxotere can now get Xtandi. Xtandi works by being a [...]
On August 13, 2013 I wrote an important post about the terrible practice beginning to rear its head called step therapy. Step therapy is the practice of insurance companies requiring less expensive drugs be prescribed prior to more expensive ones despite the comparative efficacy of the drugs and their different mechanisms of action. This practice [...]
Most of the newly approved drugs and treatments for men with advanced prostate cancer are designed and approved to be used independently of other advanced prostate cancer treatments, other than with the continuation of standard androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The newly approved drug, Xofigo, is different. It has been designed to supplement, or actually go [...]
It has been brought to my attention that when I wrote the August 8, 2013 post on Pharma Sponsored Assistance Programs, I neglected to mention another excellent assistance program for men with advanced prostate cancer. The Chronic Disease Fund (CDF) has two funds that might be of specific interest to men with castrate resistant prostate [...]
Recently men with advanced prostate cancer have found that their insurance companies have been dictating what drugs they can get instead of their doctor making the best decision for them. At Malecare we have seen that when a man with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) has finished taking chemotherapy they have been steered by [...]
Enzalutamide (Xtandi) monotherapy induced striking declines in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in a majority of patients with hormone-naive prostate cancer in a phase II trial, and this oral agent appears to have little effect on bone mineral density. If these findings are confirmed in a phase III trial, then enzalutamide may be an alternative to androgen [...]
Xtandi is often referred to as a “super bicalutamide (Casodex).” Casodex functions as a androgen blockade, which deters testosterone from being able to interact with the prostate cancer cell and feed the growth of the cancer. There are some oncologists in the United States and the standard hormone treatment in Europe often utilizes Casodex as [...]
The treatment of advanced prostate cancer, and in particular castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), has changed greatly over the last 4 years. Treatment options have expanded and now offer multiple treatment possibilities that did not exist 4 years ago. With the addition of all these new options, so comes the addition of significant economic costs, [...]
The great news for for our brothers in Europe is that Xtandi (Enzalutamide) has been approved for use in the European Union (EU) for the treatment of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer whose disease has progressed on or after chemotherapy (docetaxel). Following the regulatory review process by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and a [...]
Since it FDA approval in 2004, docetaxel (a taxane based chemotherapy) has been the standard first-line chemotherapy for men with metastatic prostate cancer (mCRPC). Other than the trial of Provenge all the successful phase III trials conducted in mCRPC focused on men experiencing cancer progression after first-line docetaxel chemotherapy. The implication is that improving the [...]
