Last October at the European Cancer Congress 2013 there was a release of data from a phase 3 study of Ipilimumab (CA 184-043) that showed that it might be effective in treating castration-resistant prostate cancer in men who have a low burden of disease; however it failed to show at the required 95% confidence level [...]
On March 4th I wrote a post which included a suggestion that combining Provenge and the clinical trial of Prostvac-VF might provide an interesting one-two punch against advanced prostate cancer. In the post I suggested that it could be interesting to have Provenge and then move immediately on to Prostvac. This was an error, I [...]
It is probably still years off, but it is worth watching. Galetrone (TOK-001) has just completed phase II trials with the results scheduled to be released at ASCO-GU at the end of the month. I will be attending this conference and will be present for their presentation and report it to you from the conference. [...]
I was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer in November of 2008. After discussing the options with my family, I decided to try clinical trials instead of following the standard course of treatment. My first clinical trial combined 6 rounds of chemotherapy with the standard hormone replacement therapy (editors note – ADT). This trial was [...]
If you are interested in participating in a clinical trial but just can not figure out how to navigate the government's clinical trial web page (www.clinicaltrials.gov) you could call 1-800-4-CANCER for assistance. This number will put you in touch with the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Center for Cancer Research. The operators who answer the phone [...]
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has begun to support the reporting and use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) of symptoms as secondary end points in clinical trials for oncology treatment. These outcomes measures are likely to become increasingly important for oncology patients as they will hopefully become part of the drug label. [...]
The exciting thing about Provenge is not only the real survival advantage that it offers with minimal side effects, but that it is a proof of concept treatment that is heralding in the potential future of many other immunotherapies. Today, we have two new possible treatments in active phase 3 trials, Prostvac and Yervoy. [...]
There have been many potential targets identified for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. Many of these targets are being actively explored with clinical trials designed to test some inhibitors of the targets. Antisense oligonucleotides (OGX-011) targets clusterin, a chaperone protein and OGX-427 which targets heat-shock protein 27 are among the inhibitors being evaluated. OGX-011 [...]
Barvarian Nordic (BN) released some outstanding news a few days ago. According to BN they hope to complete the enrollment in their phase 3, double blind, randomized, placebo controlled, international clinical trial of their cancer vaccine, Prostvac VF. The trial known as PROSPECT is scheduled to be completed with in the next 12 months, unless [...]
One of the most common gripes I hear (and one that I often express) is that Medical news changes often. How often do we hear of a "breakthrough" only to be disputed the next week. It is confusing and it is difficult to know what news to believe and whether we should change a practice, [...]
