Drug shows activity in men with prostate cancer

NEW YORK A new multi-center study shows that an experimental drug lowers prostate specific antigen levels – a marker for tumor growth – in men with advanced prostate cancer for whom traditional treatment options have failed.

Most men with metastatic prostate cancer eventually build up resistance to the drugs that lower or block male hormones and develop a more aggressive form of the illness called castration-resistant prostate cancer, or hormone-refractory disease.

The study, led by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, studied two novel compounds, RD162 and MDV3100, and not only gained an understanding of their novel mechanism of action but found that these agents showed activity in CRPC cells in culture and in mice.

The study also reports on a Phase 1/2 trial of MDV3100 in 30 patients with advanced CRPC and found that 22-in-30 men showed declining PSA levels and 13-in-30 men (43%) had PSA levels fall by more than half.

The study was supported in part by the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, and a Prostate Cancer Research Program Clinical Consortium Award. The study is published in Science Express, the online version of the journal Science.