New Prostate Cancer Drug gives Hope to patients with Advanced Prostate Cancer
Researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom has unveiled a new drug that can shrink advanced prostate cancer, which no longer respond to conventional drug therapy.
To understand how the new drug works, it is useful to briefly recall the treatment for prostate cancer.
While prostate cancer is still confined to the prostate, it may be treated by removing the prostate through surgery or by subjecting the prostate to radiation, either from an external source or by brachytherapy.
However when prostate cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland, a systemic treatment is needed that can reach all parts of the body where the prostate cancer may be. This is the advanced stage of prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is one of a small number of cancers that respond to hormone therapy. Prostate cancer may be stimulated to grow by the male hormone, testosterone. Conversely, when testosterone is removed, the prostate cancer shrinks.
Testosterone may be eliminated from the body by administering drugs that greatly reduce the production of testosterone from the testes. Alternatively, the testes, as the source of testosterone, may be removed by surgery.
This treatment approach has worked well for advanced stage prostate cancer. However, with the passage of time, the prostate cancer cells that remain may become unresponsive to this treatment. In other words, the behavior and growth of these prostate cancer cells appear not to be affected by testosterone, or rather, the lack of it. In this state, the prostate cancer can be described as to have become independent of testosterone or resistant to testosterone.
When advanced prostate cancer fail to respond to hormonal manipulation, further treatment to manage such prostate cancer usually requires chemotherapy. The present chemotherapy regime may consist of more than one chemotherapeutic agent and is usually given as intravenous infusions. The disadvantage is obvious. Other than toxic side effects of each chemotherapeutic agent, the intravenous infusions will require visits to the doctor’s clinic.
The new drug, Abiraterone, has a novel mechanism of action that appears to work well on its own. Even better, it is taken by mouth.
Abiraterone is not a chemotherapeutic agent.
The new drug Abiraterone can block the production of testosterone in every cell of the body. It does so by interfering with the enzyme 17alpha-Hydroxylase-C17, 20-lyase needed in the making of testosterone.
So far, the initial result of the treatment with Abiraterone has been reported in 21 men with prostate cancer who have failed present day hormonal therapy and not previously treated with chemotherapy
The majority of these men with advanced prostate cancer showed a significant reduction in their prostate cancer.
This result suggest that Abiraterone is highly effective in treating men with advanced prostate cancer who no longer respond to present day hormonal therapy.
This early experience is further supported by observation on 250 men with hormone-resistant prostate cancer managed with Abiraterone who have shown similar results.
More clinical trials will undoubtedly be planned for Abiraterone
If these trials with Abiraterone prove successful in controlling prostate cancer that have failed previous hormonal therapy, men will still have to wait till 2011 before Abiraterone becomes widely available.
Abiraterone is a novel drug which has been shown to be effective in the treatment of advance prostate cancer which has failed to respond to conventional hormonal therapy and holds promise for men with prostate cancer which is already the No. 1 cancer among men in the United States and No. 3 cancer among men in Singapore.
Dr Enoch Gan
FRCS , M. Med. (Surgery) FAMS (Urology)
Urosurgery Mt. E
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