Docetaxel plus ADT as first treatment - early report - not standard treatment until accepted

[JimJimJimJim]

Jim Marshall (not a doctor) said ...

Chairman Bruce Kynaston spoke at yesterday's phone-in meeting about a study which showed that:

men diagnosed metastatic whose first treatment was a combination of the chemotherapy Taxotere (docetaxel) and regular hormone therapy (ADT) did very well indeed compared to those on ADT alone.

 

Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

 

 

... end Jim

 

See one news story:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/ProstateCancer/46163

 

Or another:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/826018

(This latter link was in our Twitter feed @JimJimJimJimCom in June, but cleverly hidden by me under the vague heading "ASCO: Drug Combo Highly Active in Metastatic CRPC". I'll try to do better in future.)

 

Some extracts of the news story:

 

As of January, there were fewer deaths with ADT plus docetaxel than with ADT alone (104 vs 137), and median overall survival was longer with the combination (57.6 vs 44.0 months; hazard ratio , 0.47; P = .0003).

 

The combination, compared with ADT alone, was particularly effective in the 520 men with high-volume disease, where the increase in survival was 17 months (median overall survival, 49.2 vs to 32.2 months; HR, 0.60; P = .0006).

 

The number of patients who had a significant and major suppression of their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was doubled with the combination, "both at the 6-month mark and the 12-month mark," Dr. Sweeney reported.

 

And median time to progression — an elevation in PSA level, new symptoms, or worsening scans — was significantly longer with the combination than with ADT alone (20.7 vs 14.7 months; P < .001), as was median time to the harder end point of clinical progression (32.7 vs 19.8 months; P < .001).

 

Toxicities associated with combination included fever with suppressed white cell count in 6%, and "there was a significant impact on nerve function," he said. Also, "1% of 397 patients who received docetaxel died due to treatment."