A newly approved drug called apalutamide is giving hope to 1000’s of men facing a difficult problem after being treated for prostate cancer. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels should drop to zero after surgery, and shut to zero after radiation therapy, but in some men, they proceed to rise even when there isn’t a other evidence of cancer within the body. Doctors normally respond with PSA-raising drugs that block the production of testosterone, the male sex hormone that fuels prostate cancer. However, such a medically induced castration, called hormonal therapy, doesn’t at all times lower PSA. What's more, prostate cancer cells can turn out to be proof against hormonal therapy, after which PSA begins to rise. This known as non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC), and it often precedes the looks of metastatic tumors that appear later.
The lack of approved treatments for nmCRPC has long frustrated patients and their doctors. But in February, the US Food and Drug Administration approved apalutamide for men with NMCRC. Spartan clinical trial The drug was shown to delay metastasis by as much as two years. “Based on the results of these clinical trials, apalutamide should be considered the new standard of care for nmCRPC,” said Dr. Matthew Smith, a clinical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who led the study. “The drug fills a great medical need and holds the promise of prolonging survival for men whose cancer refuses hormonal therapy.”
The SPARTAN trial enrolled 1,207 men whose PSA levels doubled inside 10 months or less after initial treatment despite ongoing hormonal therapy. Enrolled men were assigned to receive either each day apalutamide tablets with hormonal therapy, or hormonal therapy together with placebo. Doctors normally keep on with hormonal therapy even after PSA levels rise, since it prevents the body from regaining its ability to make testosterone. The men continued the study until the primary metastasis was detected, after which they got other drugs used to treat metastatic prostate cancer.
According to the outcomes, those taking apalutamide avoided metastases for a median of 40.5 months (mean half were freed from metastases for longer and the opposite half for less). Meanwhile, placebo-treated men remained freed from metastases for a median of 16.2 months, nearly two years less. Additionally, apalutamide treatment “delays the progression of symptoms, pain and other symptoms that patients experience as a result of their cancer,” Smith said. But apalutamide, which blocks testosterone from interacting with its receptor on cancer cells, was related to more frequent negative effects, corresponding to fatigue, rash, weight reduction, falls, and skeletal fractures.
