Chemotherapy (chemo with docetaxel) has a reputation for being a difficult therapy loaded with many side effects. I believe that this reputation is overblown given that all of our new non-chemotherapies (other than Provenge) come with their own list of significant side effects. However, its reputation is in the minds of many, so men who are elderly will often choose to forgo chemo because of the age and comorbidities as well as an underlying cynicism around the possible survival advantages at this older age.
Is this the right decision? Should older men 80 years and older have chemotherapy to treat their advanced prostate cancer?
A group of Italian researchers performed a retrospective study aimed to assess the clinical outcomes in this very elderly castrate resistant advanced prostate cancer (CRPC) population.
They reviewed a consecutive series of 115 men from 28 Italian hospitals with a median age was 82 (range 80 to 90) and a median baseline prostate-specific antigen (PSA) of 92 ng/ml (range 3 to 2,981); 83% of the men had bone metastases, while nodal, lung and liver metastases were observed in 39%, 9%, and 8% of the men respectively.
They found a PSA reduction greater than 50% in 55% of the men; an objective response was observed in 15% of the 60 men who underwent a radiological re-evaluation at the treatment end.
Grade 3-4 toxicities were: anemia (2%), neutropenia (10%) , thrombocytopenia (2%), fatigue (10%), diarrhea (4%), nausea (2%), renal (2%), and febrile neutropenia (2%). The median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall surviva