The below has been adapted and excerpted from an article in Healio in which Dr. David 
Nanus comments on The LATITUDE and STAMPEDE trials — results of which were presented at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting and subsequently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Read the full story here.
Abiraterone acetate is poised to challenge docetaxel as the standard addition to androgen deprivation therapy for treatment of newly diagnosed, metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The LATITUDE and STAMPEDE trials showed the addition of abiraterone acetate and prednisone to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) reduced risk for death by nearly 40%.
Docetaxel — an IV chemotherapy — can cause nausea, constipation, diarrhea, neutropenia or fatigue during its 18-week dosing schedule. Abiraterone, an oral adrenal inhibitor traditionally used in later-line therapy, is administered until disease progression and has relatively few side effects.
Docetaxel became the standard of care in patients with metastatic hormone-resistant prostate cancer following results from the CHAARTED study, published in 2015 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The results, based on median follow-up of 28.9 months, showed docetaxel improved median overall survival (OS) from 44 months to 57.6 months.
Abiraterone typically has been reserved as second-line therapy for men resistant to ADT. The LATITUDE and STAMPEDE trials — both supported by Janssen, the manufacturer of abiraterone — evaluated whether abiraterone would be more beneficial if used earlier.
Although abiraterone conferred unprecedented survival benefits and is better tolerated, not all oncologists agree it should replace docetaxel in the absence of a head-to-head comparative trial.
HemOnc Today asked urologic oncologists and researchers about the promise of abiraterone; the potential impact of its long-term use; if its cost in comparison with docetaxel is prohibitive; and whether abiraterone soon will be challenged by other therapies for the treatment of metastatic hormone-resistant prostate cancer.
“Abiraterone is a whole new paradigm because your patient is not coming in for an infusion every few weeks for six cycles,” David M. Nanus, MD, professor of medicine and urology at Weill Cornell Medicine, told HemOnc Today. “With six cycles of docetaxel, patients are often wiped out by the time they’re done, and it might take a few months to recover afterward.”
Based on the findings of the LATITUDE and STAMPEDE trials and the potential of targeted therapy, oncologists with whom HemOnc Today spoke agreed researchers are on the precipice of significantly extending the lives of men with prostate cancer.
In addition to the enthusiasm surrounding abiraterone and its potential to be the new standard of care in the treatment of metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer, several ongoing clinical trials are investigating other strategies to reduce androgen exposure. Results of those trials also could be practice changing, and again raise questions about the standard of care.
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