Over the last several years’ prostate cancer treatment options for men with advanced prostate cancer has gone from rags to riches. We now have multiple options for treatment and there is every indication that the number of options will continue to grow.
However, we do see that not all men will respond to all treatments. Given that all of these treatments are very costly and all come with the promise of significant side effects it would be beneficial to be able to know in advanced without having to administer a treatment if a particular treatment will actual benefit a man.
“Enzalutamide (Xtandi) has been hailed as a miracle drug for many patients with advanced prostate cancer, but a significant proportion of men do not receive any clinical benefit from this agent,” said Emmanuel Antonarakis, M.D., an assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore. “Our data show that AR-V7 seems to predict resistance to enzalutamide in virtually all cases. These findings are clinically relevant and could save patients time and money because oncologists could identify those men that are unlikely to respond to enzalutamide before they receive it and direct them to alternative therapies.”
According to research conducted by Dr. Antonarakis, men with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer who started treatment with enzalutamide and had a molecule called AR-V7 present in their cir