Complementary and Alternative Medicine with Chemotherapy

The following was written and posted by Paul Edwards to the Advanced Prostate Cancer Online Support Group: The March 2014 issue of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology published an article “Why do some cancer patients receiving chemotherapy choose to take complementary and alternative medicines and what are the risks?” by authors from University of Queensland [...]

What are the Clinical implications of Chemotherapy for Men with Advanced Prostate Cancer Under the Age of 60 years?

Yesterday’s post was about the use of chemotherapy (with docetaxel) for the treatment of men with advanced prostate cancer who were 80 years old or older. Today’s post is about the use of chemotherapy in men 60 years or younger. The research for both of these posts was performed by the same team of scientists [...]

Should Men Over the Age of 80 Years Consider Chemotherapy? *

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 [...]

Anticoagulants May Increase Survival in Men with Advanced Prostate Cancer Taking Chemotherapy*

Over the past two to three years there have been some small studies that have indicated that the use of concomitant anticoagulants along with docetaxel (chemotherapy) may improve overall survival The most recent examination of this issue was performed by a team led by Emmanuel S. Antonarakis, MD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  They [...]

Enhancement of Chemotherapy by Pretreating Cells with Zoledronic Acid (Zometa)*

Chemotherapy using docetaxel remains an important  therapy, despite the newly approved drugs, to treat hormone refractory prostate cancer. Chemotherapy improves survival, however, all men taking it will eventually become refractory to the treatment. Zoledronic acid (ZA) is the most potent member of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate family and has anti-tumor activity in prostate cancer. In a study, [...]

Drunk by Chemotherapy!

Want your insurance company to pay for next drunk? According to the FDA they in fact might be willing!  All kidding aside, the FDA has issued a drug safety communication regarding the risk of intoxication with some of the intravenous generic prostate cancer chemotherapy (docetaxel) formulations containing ethanol. The drugs are marketed as generic docetaxel [...]

An Analysis of the Clinical Benefit of Chemotherapy & Xtandi Post Zytiga in Men with Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer

The FDA approved Abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) plus prednisone because it demonstrated a survival benefit for men with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) in the pre-chemotherapy setting.  Given the newness of the approval of Zytiga in this disease stage there is a lack of data on how Zytiga affects the efficacy of enzalutamide (Xtandi) or [...]

Finding BioMarkers to Drug Sensitivity, The Next Step – ASCO Annual Meeting at ASCO GU

Now that we have new treatments available to fight advanced, metastatic prostate cancer we need ways to decide on the best treatments given that many of the treatments occupy the same disease space.  This is especially important with the soaring costs of many treatments as well as the need to not waste time by giving [...]

From ASCO – Early Radiation Might Increase Survival

I have been at American Association of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) since last Thursday.  On the prostate cancer front the most exciting part of the meeting has been our being in Chicago and that the weather which has been fantastic. The only truly newsworthy thing that I have come across so far has been an abstract [...]

Does Prior Response to Zytiga Affect Subsequent Activity of Docetaxel in Men with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC)?

Given all the newly approved drugs available to us to treat advanced prostate cancer there now are many questions about the optimal sequencing of these drugs and whether earlier use of one causes cross-resistance to another. Recently, it was reported that chemotherapy with docetaxel is inactive in men with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) [...]

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