Does “AR gain” affect responses to drugs like abiraterone in men with CRPC?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it appears to be true that “AR gain” (see below) does indeed lower overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates among men with castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). … READ MORE …

And now … FDA approves second PARP inhibitor for selected men with mCRPC

Following last week’s approval of rucaparib (Rubraca), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now, also, approved the PARP inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) for the treatment of men with with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline or somatic homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene-mutated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who have progressed following prior treatment with enzalutamide or abiraterone. … READ MORE …

FDA approves first PARP inhibitor for selected men with mCRPC

Yesterday evening the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rucaparib (Rubraca) for the treatment of men with BRCA1/2-mutant, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who have also already been treated with androgen receptor-directed therapy and taxane-based chemotherapy. … READ MORE …

More negative data for checkpoint inhibition in treatment of mCRPC

Alas … once again we hear that the combination of  androgen receptor blockade (with enzalutamide/Xtandi) + a checkpoint inhibitor (the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab/Tecentriq) has had no clinically meaningful impact on the overall survival (OS) of men with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) compared to enzalutamide alone. … READ MORE …

Phase III trial of olaparib in first-line treatment of mCRPC

Unfortunately we don’t always hear about some interesting clinical trials as early as we would like to. The following is a case in point. … READ MORE …

Talazoparib + enzalutamide in treatment of mCRPC

Back in December 2017, Pfizer started a trial to explore whether the PARP inhibitor talazoparib (Talzenna) could be used in combination with enzalutamide (Xtandi) to effectively treat men with what are known as MSI-H or dMMR subtypes of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). … READ MORE …

Is there a subset of CRPC patients who may respond well to checkpoint inhibition?

A paper in the journal Oncotarget has suggested that patients who have progressed on treatment with enzalutamide (Xtandi) may be good candidates for treatment with one of the checkpoint inhibitors like pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), or even ipilimumab (Yervoy). … READ MORE …

Preliminary data from the TRITON 2 trial of rucaparib in mCRPC

A poster presented at the ESMO meeting in Munich has just reported data from an unplanned, preliminary analysis of data from the first 85 patients (out of a scheduled total of 150 patients) enrolled in the TRITON 2 trial of the PARP inhibitor rucaparib (Rubraca) … READ MORE …

Prostate cancer and treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors

Immune checkpoint inhibitors include drugs like ipilimumab (Yervoy), pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), and others that can have dramatic effects on the survival of some groups of patients with advanced forms of some cancers. … READ MORE …

Two Phase III trials of PARP inhibitors in mCRPC

There are now two, ongoing, Phase III trials of PARP inhibitors in the treatment of eligible patients with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). … READ MORE …

Second PARP inhibitor approved by FDA (but still not for prostate cancer)

A second PARP inhibitor has recently been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with BRCA1/2 mutations and advanced ovarian cancer who have already received two types of chemotherapy. … READ MORE …

Maybe PD-1 inhibitors have a role in advanced prostate cancer after all!

New immunotherapeutic drugs known as PD-1 inhibitors (drugs like nivolumab/Optivo and pembrolizumab/Keytruda) have shown some remarkable effects in the treatment of advanced forms of cancer like melanoma and some forms of lung cancer. … READ MORE …

Abiraterone + veliparib in treatment of men with mCRPC

Another important set of data that came out of the ASCO session that your sitemaster was unable to attend were the data presented by Dr. Maha Hussain on the use of the PARP inhibitor veliparib.

J&J investing further in potential drugs for advanced prostate cancer

Johnson & Johnson has just acquired the rights to develop and sell a drug called niraparib for the treatment of prostate cancer everywhere in the world except Japan. The developer, Waltham, MA-based Tesaro, has retained the rights to niraparib in Japan. … READ MORE …

Published data on activity of olaparib in some men with mCRPC

A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine now provides detailed information about the activity of the PARP inhibitor olaparib in the treatment of carefully selected patients with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). … READ MORE …