The late-stage trial of Revlimid (lenalidomide) for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer has been discontinued after preliminary data shows that it does not extend survival! The independent monitoring committee recommended that the pivotal Phase III Mainsail trial be halted after it determined that adding Revlimid to standard treatments would not significantly increase the overall [...]
According to a an article published in the January 2012 issue of Cancer Prevention Research, estrogen may play a role in Melanoma recurrences! The article described a large cohort study of women who were put on an anti-estrogen therapy. The study concluded that those women on the anti-estrogen therapy had a lower risk of melanoma. [...]
There are two different dosage levels used for the administration of Ketoconazole (Keto), a commonly used 2nd line hormone deprivation drug used after the failure of the traditional drugs (Lupron, Zoladex etc.). Low dosage keto involves taking 200 mg three times a day (600 mg per day), while high dose keto uses 400 three times [...]
Recently, I received two separate questions about both low dose ketoconazole (LDK) and high dose ketoconacole (HDK). For both of these men with castrate resistant advanced prostate cancer, their PSA scores continued to rise, despite their using keto. Even when taken properly, not all men experience a positive effect from the drug (a decline in [...]
For those who do not know, I moderate an advanced prostate cancer on-line support group. Members are both men with advanced prostate cancer and many of their care givers. There was a recent conversation I want to share about specific “off label” and “out of the box” treatment strategies, specifically about oncologists not knowing about [...]
All the drugs used as 2nd line hormone therapy are only partially effective. Only some individuals respond and receive any benefit from them, but there has been some recent research into combining the drugs. At the last American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Dr. Eric Small, M.D. presented a abstract about his recent experimentation of [...]
Somastatin is a naturally occurring hormone that affects the levels of other hormone production in the body. Its most common drug use today is to treat giantism and acromegaley, a disease characterized by an over abundance of growth hormones. There is laboratory evidence that somastatin analogs such as octreotide acetate (Sandostatin/Sandoz) can affect the growth [...]
Leukine, a granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), is a hormone therapy that does not have an effect on a man’s testosterone production. Leukine is used by many physicians who are knowledgeable about the value of second line hormone therapy. Leukine works by stimulating the white blood cells (both increasing the overall production of the white [...]
One of the earliest hormone therapies (ADT) given to men to treat prostate cancer was estrogen. Estrogen, commonly known as the female hormone, was used as an ADT treatment in the early 1950s. […]
At some point in the progression of advanced prostate cancer the usual initial standard of care, hormone therapy (ADT2 or ADT3), will fail to control the progression of the cancer. Commonly, when ADT does fail we will experience an increase in our PSA scores and often see signs of disease progression on imaging tests. For [...]
