More from my explorations at the American Association of Cancer Researchers (AACR) conference in Washington, D.C.
Abstract 5386 described a study using a thalidomide analogue called lenalidomide (Revlimid), in combination with Taxotere, which currently is the only approved drug for chemotherapy for advanced, metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer.
In the abstract, presented as a poster, Jake Y. Henry, of St. George’s University in London, said that in mouse models of prostate cancer and bench experiments with prostate cancer cell lines, a combination of the two drugs:
• Appeared to reduce the concentration of docetaxel needed to inhibit growth of half the cancer cells by 42%, thereby improving the ability of docetaxel to impact cells normally resistant to the drug.
• Appeared to show that lenalidomide by itself could inhibit cell invasion by prostate cancer cells driven by epidermal growth factor (EGF) in PC3 and DU145 cell lines in a dose-dependent fashion.
• Improved survival of laboratory animals by 59 days compared with 48 days for lenalidomide alone or 40 days for docetaxel alone with a corresponding reduction in tumor growth.
“These results support the use of lenalidomide in combination with docetaxel as an effective treatment for patients with castrate resistant prostate cancer,” Henry wrote in support