Newly diagnosed patients with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate
cancer gained a dramatic survival benefit when started on two drugs
simultaneously, rather than delaying the second drug until the cancer
began to worsen, according to results of a clinical trial led by a
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientist.
Patients who underwent six cycles of treatment with the chemotherapy
drug Docetaxel along with a hormone blocker survived for a median of
57.6 months, more than a year longer than the median 44-month survival
for men who received only the hormone-blocker.
The multi-center, phase III trial, involving 790 patients, "is the first
to identify a strategy that prolongs survival in men newly diagnosed
with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer," said Christopher J.
Sweeney, MBBS, of Dana-Farber.
It has been standard practice for decades to treat this group of
prostate cancer patients with hormone blockers, withholding chemotherapy
until the hormone blockers become ineffective, which they do, on
average, in about three years.
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