BERKELEY, CA USA (Press Release) - October 11, 2012 - UroToday.com premiers a new, case study-based, mini-lecture series for clinicians treating urologic cancers, specifically metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Charles Ryan, MD, cancer researcher and a medical oncologist at the University of California San Francisco has participated in various mCRPC clinical trials and is the first guest lecturer. His case-based presentation can be viewed online.
This case-based lecture is representative of the key findings Dr. Ryan presented at the 2012 ASCO meeting He reported clinical results observed from pre-specified interim analyses of the randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 3 study, COU-AA-302 in patients with mCRPC. These asymptomatic metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer patients were treated with abiraterone acetate plus prednisone and in this interim analysis demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS), and all secondary endpoints, compared to patients treated with placebo plus prednisone.
“Anybody treating prostate cancer realizes that the application of chemotherapy in this disease (mCRPC) is somewhat limited either by patient or physician choice due to the toxicity of the treatment,” stated Dr. Ryan. “The development of abiraterone acetate, as well as, other targeted therapies, is moving along the lines of developing oral, well-tolerated treatments that can delay progression and improve survival and that can help maintain the general well being of these patients -- many of whom are free of symptoms of the disease for a long period of time.”
While Dr. Ryan says that the treatment of prostate cancer is getting very complicated to manage due to the wide variety of treatments available, “This is a good and a bad problem, and as a physician we need to better understand where to sequence these treatments in the spectrum of the disease.”
It is interesting to note, said Ryan, “In the COA-AA-302 study, a rising PSA did not constitute progression of the disease. What constituted disease progression was the development of new metastatic lesions.” (In this study, the average PSA was 45, approximately 50 percent of the patients had greater than10 bone metastases at study enrolment). The COA-AA-302 study is the first randomized study to demonstrate a radiographic progression-free survival benefit and a strong trend for overall survival in this patient population.
About UroToday.com
UroToday is an online medical resource published by Digital Science Press, Inc. representing a worldwide urologic-oncology readership of more than 33,000 urologic physicians, physician assistants, nurses, and health educators. Since 2003, UroToday.com has reported evidence-based medicine on all categories of urology health and including prostate, bladder and renal cancers.
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