Advanced Prostate Cancer Combination Therapy Shows Promise

Chemotherapy combination extends progression-free survival over standard chemotherapy.

A combination regimen of chemotherapy drugs was found to extend progression free survival in advanced prostate cancer patients compared with a single chemotherapy agent.

In a clinical trial presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, researchers compared the efficacy of the chemotherapy drug cabazitaxel alone versus cabazitaxel with platinum chemotherapy drug carboplatin in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer.

The trial randomized 160 patients to either the single drug or combination drug regimen for up to 10 cycles of chemotherapy. The researchers monitored progression free survival, changes in the blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BAP), along with safety and toxicity in both patient groups.

The results showed that median progression free survival was 6.7 months in the combination therapy arm compared with 4.4 months in the single agent group. The combination therapy group also saw reductions in both PSA and BAP.

A PSA reduction of more than 50% occurred 60% of the time with the combination therapy compared with 44% with the single agent.

PSA reductions of more than 90% occurred 28% of the time in the combination group compared with 20% with the single agent. BAP reductions of more than 50% for the combination therapy was 63% compared with 25% in the single drug group.

Side effects were similar across both groups with no serious toxicity events.

"We believe cabazitaxel-carboplatin combination chemotherapy may become the clinical standard for advanced prostate cancer once additional safety, efficacy and overall survival data is generated," said Paul Corn, MD, PhD, associate professor of genitourinary medical oncology at MD Anderson, in a press release.