Project description:Until recently, docetaxel-based therapy represented the only therapy shown to prolong survival in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). The past year and a half has been marked by unprecedented progress in treatments for this disease. Three positive phase III clinical trials have emerged, each evaluating agents (sipuleucel-T, cabazitaxel and abiraterone) with distinct mechanisms of action. Herein, the three pivotal trials are described alongside both past and current large phase III studies conducted in this mCRPC. The overall survival for patients with mCRPC treated in current clinical trials is considerably longer than noted in the past. We note that more recent trials with older agents have also shown improved survival and discuss potential non-therapeutic biases that influence this critical measure of outcome. The necessity for utilizing randomized trials when evaluating new therapeutics is emphasized given the changing prognosis in this mCRPC.
Project description:Majority of patients with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) develop bone metastases which results in significant morbidity and mortality as a result of skeletal-related events (SREs). Several bone-targeted agents are either in clinical use or in development for prevention of SREs. Bisphosphonates were the first class of drugs investigated for prevention of SREs and zoledronic acid is the only bisphosphonate that is FDA-approved for this indication. Another bone-targeted agent is denosumab which is a fully humanized monoclonal antibody that binds to the RANK-L thereby inhibiting RANK-L mediated bone resorption. While several radiopharmaceuticals were approved for pain palliation in mCRPC including strontium and samarium, alpharadin is the first radiopharmaceutical to show significant overall survival benefit. Contemporary therapeutic options including enzalutamide and abiraterone have effects on pain palliation and SREs as well. Other novel bone-targeted agents are currently in development, including the receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors cabozantinib and dasatinib. Emerging therapeutics in mCRPC has resulted in great strides in preventing one of the most significant sources of complications of bone metastases.
Project description:Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in men and is a common cause of cancer-related death. Despite significant progress in the diagnosis and treatment of this tumor, patients who relapse after radical treatments inevitably develop metastatic disease. Patient stratification is therefore key in this type of cancer, and there is an urgent need for prognostic biomarkers that can define patients' risk of cancer-related death. In the last 10 years, multiple prognostic factors have been identified and studied. Here, we review the literature available and discuss the most common aberrant genomic pathways in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer shown to have a prognostic relevance in this setting.
Project description:After the introduction of prostate cancer screening with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, we have witnessed a dramatic stage migration. As a result, an increasing number of patients are diagnosed at earlier stages and receive local treatments including surgery or radiation. When these local treatments fail by the definition of increasing PSA levels, patients are usually treated with androgen-deprivation therapy. A fraction of these patients will finally reach a state of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) even without radiological evidence of metastasis, which is referred to as nonmetastatic CRPC (NM-CRPC). Most men with advanced or metastatic prostate cancer initially respond to various types of androgen ablation, but a considerable portion of them eventually progress to NM-CRPC. Among patients with NM-CPRC, about one-third will develop bone metastasis within 2 years. In these patients, PSA kinetics is the most powerful indicator of progression and is usually used to trigger further imaging studies and enrollment in clinical trials. Although CRPC remains largely driven by the androgen receptor, the benefit of second-line hormonal manipulations, including first-generation antiandrogens, adrenal synthesis inhibitors, and steroids, has not been investigated in men with NM-CRPC. To date, denosumab is the only agent that has been shown to delay the onset of bone metastasis. However, overall survival did not differ. In treating NM-CRPC patients, physicians should recognize the heterogeneity of the disease and acknowledge that the recently approved second-line treatments have been studied only in advanced stages of the disease.
Project description:The management of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) presents a clinical challenge because of limitations in efficacy and durability with currently available therapeutics. The epothilones represent a novel class of anticancer therapy that stabilizes microtubules, causing cell death and tumor regression in preclinical models. The structure of the tubulin-binding site for epothilones is distinct from that of the taxanes. Moreover, preclinical studies suggest nonoverlapping mechanisms of resistance between epothilones and taxanes. In early-phase studies in patients with CRPC, treatment with ixabepilone, a semisynthetic analog of epothilone B, induced objective responses and prostate-specific antigen declines in men previously progressing on docetaxel-based regimens. Clinical activity has been observed in nonrandomized trials for patients with CRPC using ixabepilone in the first- and second-line settings as a single agent and in combination with estramustine. Patupilone and sagopilone were also shown to have promising efficacy in phase II clinical trials of patients with CRPC. All three epothilones appear to be well tolerated, with modest rates of neutropenia and peripheral neuropathy. The lack of crossresistance between epothilones and taxanes may allow sequencing of these agents. Evaluating epothilones in phase III comparative trials would provide much-needed insight into their potential place in the management of patients with CRPC.
Project description:Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is the main challenge for prostate cancer treatment. Recent studies have indicated that extending the treatments to simultaneously targeting different pathways could provide better approaches. To better understand the regulatory functions of different pathways, a system-wide study of CRPC regulation is necessary. For this purpose, we constructed a comprehensive CRPC regulatory network by integrating multiple pathways such as the MEK/ERK and the PI3K/AKT pathways. We studied the feedback loops of this network and found that AKT was involved in all detected negative feedback loops. We translated the network into a predictive Boolean model and analyzed the stable states and the control effects of genes using novel methods. We found that the stable states naturally divide into two obvious groups characterizing PC3 and DU145 cells respectively. Stable state analysis further revealed that several critical genes, such as PTEN, AKT, RAF, and CDKN2A, had distinct expression behaviors in different clusters. Our model predicted the control effects of many genes. We used several public datasets as well as FHL2 overexpression to verify our finding. The results of this study can help in identifying potential therapeutic targets, especially simultaneous targets of multiple pathways, for CRPC.
Project description:Prostate cancer is a heterogeneous disease where the previous concept of "hormone resistance" has been changed by a new generation of hormonal therapies that have proven efficacy in the castration-resistant setting. The fact is that androgens play a crucial role in the whole clinical course of prostate cancer, even when a patient meets castration-resistance criteria. The development of abiraterone showed how important and clinically meaningful can be to achieve the lowest possible levels of testosterone, and androgen receptor overexpression, mutation, or enhanced crosstalk with other pathways, which can also be targeted with new agents tested in the last few years. New androgen biosynthesis inhibitors have been developed, such as orteronel (TAK-700), but also new antiandrogens (enzalutamide, ARN-509, ODM-201) or even agents with a dual mechanism of action (galeterone). In this review the development of new hormonal therapies following the arrival of abiraterone for the treatment of prostate cancer will be summarized.
Project description:The treatment landscape of advanced prostate cancer continues to evolve rapidly, with newer and more active drugs being used in earlier phases of the disease based on improved overall survival. After adoption of docetaxel for metastatic castration-sensitive disease, large trials with next-generation androgen receptor-signaling inhibitors (abiraterone, enzalutamide and apalutamide) have demonstrate significant improvements in survival and important secondary endpoints. For non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, recent phase III placebo-controlled trials with enzalutamide, apalutamide and darolutamide all demonstrated benefits in improving metastasis-free survival. This review aims to summarize the clinical development of darolutamide, a novel next-generation androgen receptor antagonist, including preclinical data, clinical studies and the potential of darolutamide for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. To date, darolutamide efficacy and tolerability has been demonstrated in the ARAMIS trial, which demonstrated an improvement in metastasis-free survival compared to placebo for non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients with a rapid PSA doubling time. Ongoing studies will further evaluate the role of darolutamide in metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer in combination with docetaxel (ARASENS trial) and also in other stages of the disease.
Project description:Prostate cancer (PCa) is a major diagnosed cancer among men globally, and about 20% of patients develop metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) in the initial diagnosis. PCa is a typical androgen-dependent disease; thus, hormonal therapy is commonly used as a standard care for mPCa by inhibiting androgen receptor (AR) activities, or androgen metabolism. Inevitably, almost all PCa will acquire resistance and become castration-resistant PCa (CRPC) that is associated with AR gene mutations or amplification, the presence of AR variants, loss of AR expression toward neuroendocrine phenotype, or other hormonal receptors. Treating CRPC poses a great challenge to clinicians. Research efforts in the last decade have come up with several new anti-androgen agents to prolong overall survival of CRPC patients. In addition, many potential targeting agents have been at the stage of being able to translate many preclinical discoveries into clinical practices. At this juncture, it is important to highlight the emerging strategies including small-molecule inhibitors to AR variants, DNA repair enzymes, cell survival pathway, neuroendocrine differentiation pathway, radiotherapy, CRPC-specific theranostics and immune therapy that are underway or have recently been completed.
Project description:Heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) is highly overexpressed in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and an antisense inhibitor (OGX-427) is currently in phase II clinical trials. In order to understand mechanisms of action of Hsp27 and find new therapeutic targets specific of CRPC, we screened for Hsp27 client proteins. Here, we report that translationally controlled tumor protein (TCTP) is a new Hsp27 client protein involved in Hsp27 cytoprotection. We found that TCTP expression is absent or weak in normal prostate cells, moderately expressed in 18.5% of treatment naive PC, and becomes uniformly and strongly expressed in 75% of CRPC. To define TCTP function, we developed and worldwide patented a TCTP antisense oligonucleotide (ASO). Interestingly, we found that CRPC progression correlates with TCTP overexpression and loss of P53. TCTP knockdown restored P53 expression and function, suggesting that castration-sensitivity is directly linked to P53 expression. Collectively, these findings provide a new Hsp27 cytoprotection mechanism in CRPC, and preclinical proof-of-concept that combining ASO-mediated TCTP knockdown with castration and/or docetaxel therapy could serve as a novel strategy to treat CRPC, with no or little toxicity for normal prostate cells.