Abiraterone acetate may help to eliminate cancer prior to surgery in ...

According to the abstract of a paper to be presented at the upcoming meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology in Chicago at the beginning of June, 24 weeks of treatment with neoadjuvant abiraterone acetate + prednisone + an LHRH agonist appears to be able to eliminate visible risk of prostate cancer in post-surgical specimens in a small percentage of men diagnosed with high-risk disease.

This paper by Taplin et al. is based on a small, randomized, Phase II clinical trial in men scheduled for surgery after initial diagnosis with high-risk prostate cancer (based on the NCCN criteria). Thus, all patients had clinical stage T3/4 disease, or a Gleason score ? 3 + 4 = 7, or a PSA level ? 20 ng/ml, or a PSA velocity > 2 ng/ml/year.

The trial involved 56 patients who were randomized into two groups as follows:

• The men in Group A (n = 27) were first treated with 12 weeks of neoadjuvant leuprolide acteate and then with a further 12 weeks of leuprolide acetate + abiraterone acetate + low-dose prednisone.
• The men in Group B (n = 29) were treated for 24 weeks with neoadjuvant abiraterone acetate + leuprolide acetate + prednisone.
• All 56 men in Groups A and B were then given a radical prostatectomy following their presurgical treatment.

The short-term outcomes of the study showed that:

• Among the men in Group B
  • 3/29 patients (10 percent) exhibited complete eliminate of any pathological evidence of cancer in the post-surgical specimen.
  • 7/29 patients (24 percent) exhibited a disease reduction to?? 5 mm of residual cancer in the post-surgical specimen.
  • 7/29 patients (24 percent exhibited positive lymph nodes at time of surgery.
• Among the men in Group A
  • 1/27 patients (4 percent) exhibited complete eliminate of any pathological evidence of cancer in the post-surgical specimen.
  • 3/27 patients (11 percent) exhibited a disease reduction to?? 5 mm of residual cancer in the post-surgical specimen.
  • 3/27 patients (11 percent) exhibited positive lymph nodes at time of surgery.
• ?Treatment was well-tolerated in both groups, with ?very low systemic side effects and no additional surgical toxicities.?

According to Dr. Taplin, in quotations appearing on the OncLive web site, the historical rates of complete pathologic remission of prostate cancer (based on the use of standard forms of hormone therapy) are < 5 percent, ?So these rates are very impressive.?

The ?New? Prostate Cancer InfoLink would caution that this is still only a small trial, and ? while these data are interesting ? we will need significantly more data before a compelling argument could be made that all men with high-risk, localized prostate cancer should be receiving neoadjuvant treatment with a period of combination hormonal therapy prior to first-line therapy (with surgery or any other first-line. therapy). In particular, we draw the reader?s attention to the fact that, despite the lowering of risk for pathological evidence of cancer in the prostate among the men in Group B compared to Group A, the risk for positive lymph nodes apparently remained higher in Group A compared to Group B.

It should be noted that an analogous trial has been scheduled to study the use of enzalutamide (MDV3100) alone vs. + an LHRH agonist + dutasteride in pre-surgical treatment of men with intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer, and that the structure of this trial is also reported in the ASCO abstracts.

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Filed under: Diagnosis, Drugs in development, Management, Risk, Treatment, Uncategorized Tagged: | abiraterone, dutasteride, enzalutamide, leuprolide, MDV3100, neoadjuvant, pre-surgical

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