Study Shows ‘A Lot of Hope’ for Prostate Cancer Treatment

The recent DEAR trial showed that most patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer were able to stay on androgen-receptor antagonist therapies and that they typically offered effective cancer treatment with tolerable safety profiles.

“I think there’s a lot of hope that is wrapped up in the DEAR study”, said study author, Dr. Alicia Morgans, a genitourinary medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The trial looked at the electronic medical records from 870 patients across the United States who were being treated with one of three androgen-receptor antagonist therapies: Nubeqa (darolutamide), Xtandi (enzalutamide) and Erleada (apalutamide). Of note, all of these therapies have gained Food and Drug Administration approval and are accepted standard of care of this patient population.

The findings showed that patients tended to stop treatment with Xtandi (40.8%) or Erleada (46%) slightly earlier than Nubeqa (30.4%), and the most common reason for stopping treatment was side effects. Patients also stopped their therapies due to progression/death, switching to another androgen-receptor inhibitor, insurance/reimbursement issues or other reasons.

Transcription

I think the DEAR study is interesting from a patient perspective, because it really reflects what's happening in clinics around the United States — and not just what's happening in one doctor's office to one or two patients. It's 870 patients in this particular analysis.

I think one of the other things that's really important from the DEAR study is that, in general, patients are able to stay on their drugs. There is some discontinuation, it can be maybe different between these different drugs. But overall, patients are staying on these drugs. They're staying on for a long time. And the drugs seem to be benefiting patients in a way that that is also compatible with a good side effect profile and helps patients to feel well.

So I think there's a lot of hope that is wrapped up in the DEAR study, that patients can stay on their treatment for non-metastatic (castration-resistant prostate cancer) hopefully have good disease control, prevent complications of their prostate cancer and do so in a way that makes sense for them in terms of maintaining good quality of life with relatively good side effect profiles.

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