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Prostate Cancer | Advances in Research and Technology

Prostate Cancer | Advances in Research and Technology from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What are the latest prostate cancer research advancements? Expert Dr. Rana McKay discusses recent prostate cancer treatment approvals, ongoing research, and genetic testing developments.

Dr. Rana McKay is an associate clinical professor of medicine at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. Learn more about Dr. McKay.

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Transcript:

Katherine:

Well, let’s dive into developing research and what it could mean for patients. Are there recent research highlights that you could share with the audience?  

Dr. McKay:

Absolutely. I think the newest approvals that have occurred in prostate cancer have been the approvals of combination PARP inhibitors, which block the ability of cancer cells to repair their DNA combined with hormonal agents such as abiraterone (Zytiga) or enzalutamide (Xtandi) for patients who have specific mutations in their tumor and their tumor is no longer responding to treatment. Those are the newest FDA approvals that were recently highlighted and shared.  

Katherine:

What areas of research do you specialize in? 

Dr. McKay:

The areas of research that I specialize in are particularly around novel therapeutics for patients with advanced prostate cancer, biomarker development precision medicine strategies for patients across the spectrum. And actually, also, in the localized setting, thinking about how we can attempt to cure more patients with prostate cancer by integrating our systemic therapy with surgical and radiation strategies to improve survival outcomes for patients and ultimately, cure it for patients by using effective systemic therapy early on so patients never recur.   

Katherine:

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about innovations in technology. How are these advances accelerating prostate cancer care?  

Dr. McKay:

Innovations of technology have absolutely been revolutionizing prostate cancer care I think from the diagnostic side, there’s new imaging modalities that are getting more refined. On the molecular side, there’s now different kinds of genetic tests. And our ability for us to do these tests, and do them quickly, and get results in real time that we can make decisions on we’ve come a long way from when we first sequenced the human genome. We’re now able to do that so quickly multiple times over in a very streamlined kind of way. And then, I have to say that there’s been tremendous improvement in our modalities of administrating therapies.  

So, our therapies are getting more novel, they’re getting more precise. What I mean, by that is targeted radioligand therapy, targeting linking a small molecule that binds PSMA, labeling it with a payload that is radiation therapy or kind of radio therapy/radio particle doing the same thing with chemotherapy, developing antibody drug conjugates. There’s androgen receptor degraders. There’s different ways of administrating immunotherapy by specific antibodies. So, there’s just the different sorts of treatments that are out there.  

We’ve just come such a long way from hormone therapy, which is still very important in chemotherapy to other different modes of action with the different systemic treatments we have.  

Katherine:

What about individual patients? Is there research into understanding a person’s – just one person’s disease?  

Dr. McKay:

Absolutely. I mean, that is in essence, precision medicine. I think we are now molecularly profiling tumors that is standard of care for anybody with advanced disease to undergo hereditary tumor profiling and – or hereditary profiling of just normal cells in the body, if there’s any sort of genetic abnormalities. But also, the tumor itself, and able to do that all for the actual biopsy specimen, or surgical specimen, and also blood. And then, based off of that individual’s genetic makeup, or the genetic makeup of the tumor, or the immune profile of the tumor actually trying to target therapy.  

There is a clinical trial that we are eagerly developing through the alliance, which we hope will open to enrollment before the end of the year, called the PREDICT Study. And this study is using that very notion of taking somebody’s DNA and RNA from their specific tumor, and based off of their results, strategizing the treatment around what kind of genetic makeup is in the tumor. And I think we’re moving towards that.  

Katherine:

What about common genetic mutations and what are you learning about people who have other genetic mutations like the BRCA mutation?  

Dr. McKay:

For patients who have BRCA mutations, first I’ll say, the prevalence of BRCA mutations varies across the stage of prostate cancer that somebody has. In the localized setting, the prevalence is a lot lower on the order of 2 to 4 percent depending on somebody’s risk profile. In the advanced setting, it is higher, 6 to 8 percent. Patients who have BRCA alterations are particularly susceptible to PARP inhibitors, which are oral drugs that can be given that when given in an individual who’s got a BRCA mutation, can cause cell death; can cause a tumor cell to die. And so, that’s a very good thing.  

I think the other thing, if thinking about the type of BRCA alterations, if there’s something that’s hereditary, this information is prognostic and predictive in that in can guide how people are going to – how we think they may do and what they may respond to. But it’s also really important because it can inform cascade testing for family members. It could also inform screening for secondary cancers in that individual who has prostate cancer with a known BRCA alteration. So, I think there’s a lot of personalization that happens based off of the molecular profiling results.  

Establishing Treatment Goals: What Are Options for Advanced Prostate Cancer Therapy?

Establishing Treatment Goals: What Are Options for Advanced Prostate Cancer Therapy? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Prostate cancer treatment goals can vary by patient – thus why it’s essential to have different treatment options. Expert Dr. Xin Gao explains the importance of establishing treatment goals and shares an overview of available options. 

Dr. Xin Gao is a Medical Oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn more about this expert Dr. Gao.

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Transcript:

Katherine:

Dr. Gao, now that we know what goes into understanding a patient’s disease, I’d like to talk about treatment, starting with treatment goals. How do goals vary by patient, if they vary at all? 

Dr. Gao:

Sure, yeah. I do think they vary, and I think it is important to be clear about what the realistic goals of treatment might be so that the patient can make an informed decision on how the prostate cancer should be treated or managed. 

Some prostate cancers are highly curable, although there isn’t anything that’s 100 percent, right? And others are curable, but we acknowledge that there may still be a significant risk of relapse despite treatment. And maybe that rough percentage, the probability of cure and sort of the potential downsides or side effects of treatment, that’s something that the patient has to weigh in terms of whether they want to proceed with that treatment or not.   

And then, there are cancers, especially with advanced prostate cancers, that are unfortunately not curable, but yet treatments have the ability to significantly prolong somebody’s life, to slow the cancer progression down or even to shrink it, and to improve cancer-associated symptoms and other sources of distress that we talked about earlier.  

And so, with each patient, I think it is important to talk about these treatment goals because it may not be readily clear, is this a curable cancer or not? And it might not be clear how much benefit they might expect with treatment or are we talking about a marginal benefit? And then that way, you know, they can think about it, talk about it with their family, and kind of factor into their overall benefit risk calculation about whether to do something or not. 

Katherine:

Would you provide an overview of current treatment options for advanced disease? 

Dr. Gao:

Sure. So, it’s a big, very open-ended question, I think.  

So, I think you can divide it up into sort of the major treatment modalities, so things like radiation or radiation types of therapies, chemotherapy, hormonal therapies which are the mainstay of prostate cancer treatments, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies.  

Starting with hormonal therapies which are the backbone of prostate cancer treatments, for advanced prostate cancer, androgen deprivation therapy or ADT is often given indefinitely as the typical standard of care treatment and there are various forms of ADT, most commonly in the form of long-lasting injectable medications – leuprolide (Eligard/Lupron Depot), goserelin (Zoladex), sometimes degarelix (Firmagaon)  is used. And then more recently, there was an FDA approval a couple years ago of an oral pill called relugolix (Orgovyx), which is also a form of ADT or androgen deprivation therapy.  

These medications block the body’s ability to make testosterone which is important for prostate cancer survival and spread. In addition, abiraterone is an oral medication that is also considered a hormonal therapy. It blocks the production on androgens or male sex hormones outside of the testes. That includes the adrenal glands and some other tissues such as prostate cancer itself. And abiraterone (Zytiga) is commonly used in advanced prostate cancer management, in addition to androgen deprivation therapy whereas ADT blocks the testes from making testosterone and androgens, abiraterone blocks the production of androgens outside of the testes.  

And then finally, oral anti-androgen medications that block the prostate cancers from being able to detect androgens or male hormones and to block the androgen receptors on prostate cancers from sending cellular signals for growth and survival are also very commonly used.  

There are older anti-androgen medications like bicalutamide (Casodex), flutamide (Eulexin), lutamide, and there are newer ones, stronger versions, called enzalutamide (Xtandi), apalutamide (Erleada), and darolutamide (Nubeqa). For most patients who present with advanced prostate cancer, I think this is much easier, ADT along with either abiraterone or one of the newer, stronger anti-androgens, is the standard of care for most advanced prostate cancer patients with metastatic disease.  

And then, sometimes for patients with higher volume or more aggressive cancers even in the group with metastatic disease, we even add on another treatment, usually chemotherapy, something called docetaxel for what we call triple therapy. And then, maybe that’s a segue to chemotherapy, so docetaxel chemotherapy is a common chemotherapy used for prostate cancer, certainly advanced prostate cancers. Cabazitaxel (Jevtana) is also a common chemotherapy in this situation. These two are related drugs in a family of drugs called taxane chemotherapies and basically they kind of block the trafficking of important components within cancer cells and cause the cancer cell death.  

Docetaxel (Taxotere) is the more commonly used one. It’s typically used earlier, before cabazitaxel. And like I said earlier, for certain patients with what we call high volume metastatic prostate cancer, it’s often used in combination with hormonal therapies early on, what we call upfront therapy for six cycles. If a patient doesn’t receive docetaxel up front, docetaxel is commonly used after progression, after the cancer has progressed on ADT and one of the oral hormone medications.  

Cabazitaxel is more commonly used after a patient has previously received or progressed on docetaxel. Both drugs have been evaluated in randomized Phase III clinical trials and have shown to provide efficacy for patients with advanced prostate cancers.  

In addition to these taxane chemotherapies, platinum chemotherapy, such as carboplatin or cisplatin, are sometimes used for advanced prostate cancers as well, especially for certain neuroendocrine or small cell prostate cancers. These are rarer cancers, but they tend to respond better to platinum-based chemotherapies.   

Or for certain what we call aggressive variant prostate cancers, these platinum-based chemotherapies are also used in combination with either one of the taxanes or with another chemotherapy drug called etoposide. In terms of other treatment modalities, I think recently what we call radiotherapeutics or radioligand therapies have gotten a lot of press with the approval of a new medication called lutetium PSMA or 177 lutetium PSMA 617 (Pluvicto). 

The brand name for that in the U.S. is Pluvicto and what this is is a drug that’s a small molecule that binds to PSMA, which is a protein highly expressed in close to 90% of prostate cancer, advanced prostate cancers. And the small molecule will home to the cancer and it’s linked to radioactive lutetium and the lutetium will decay in that area and lead to cancer cell death.  

So, Pluvicto or lutetium was FDA approved in spring of 2022 based on randomized Phase III trials that show significant efficacy for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have previously received a second-generation androgen receptor pathway inhibitor, such as abiraterone and enzalutamide, as well as a taxane chemotherapy, like docetaxel or cabazitaxel.  

The medication is given intravenously, once every six weeks, for up to six doses, and there are ongoing clinical trials, actually, that are trying to evaluate this medication in earlier settings where patients haven’t gotten prior chemotherapy before. There was a press release from about half a year ago stating that they’re seeing some early encouraging signs of efficacy with this drug, even in patients who had never received chemotherapy before, so it may be a medication that is going to be used more and more so in more patients even earlier in their course of disease. they’ve shown pretty solid activity for those kinds of cancers. 

What Are Current Prostate Cancer Treatment Options?

What Are Current Prostate Cancer Treatment Options? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What treatment options are available for prostate cancer patients? Expert Dr. Channing Paller shares an overview of prostate cancer treatment options including surgery, radiation, combination therapies, hormonal therapies, and the PEACE-1 clinical trial.

Dr. Channing Paller is Director of Prostate Cancer Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Paller.

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Transcript:

Katherine:

What are other options that are available now, for patients? 

Dr. Paller:

For curative intent, the main two treatment options are surgery, radiation. Many people for very localized disease are trying other therapies, such as cryotherapy, and more focal therapies. But really, for curative, the standard is surgery or radiation. And as it gets more advanced, circling back to advanced prostate cancer, we are learning that combination therapy is better. So, adding pills like abiraterone, adding systemic therapies, help patients do better. 

So, there’s a big, long list of therapies upfront that we use for metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. There’s abiraterone, there is apalutamide (Erleada), there’s enzalutamide, and now, darolutamide (Nubeqa).  

And in fact, in fit patients that can tolerate chemotherapy for metastatic high-volume prostate cancer patients, we always recommend triple therapy, either with abiraterone, docetaxel, and ADT, or with darolutamide, docetaxel, and ADT, and these patients really seem to do better for longer. The other thing I would add is the PEACE-1 trial, which looked at abiraterone and docetaxel, found that patients would do best by adding growth factor support. And so, that is recommended. 

The other thing I want to point out to patients is, I know we’re all eager to get started when we find out we have a diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer, but sometimes, these therapies are quite tough on the system when you have a lot of cancer in your body, and my recommendation to everybody is, one thing at a time. 

So, start the hormone therapy and wait at least 30 days, and in fact, in the PEACE-1 trial, they waited 45 days, right? That allows the testosterone levels to fall, it allows you to adjust to the side effects of hormone deprivation therapy, and it allows your body to be ready for the next line of therapy. And you can add the ADT to second line, such as abiraterone or daro during that time, but not adding the chemo all at once, that really makes a difference. 

I find, unfortunately, when patients and their providers don’t follow those strict criteria, as they did in the trial, meaning they start chemo and abiraterone and ADT on day one, the levels of chemotherapy get higher in the bloodstream because testosterone regulates that, and we’ve published on that before. And they end up with terrible side effects from the chemotherapy, such as neutropenic fever, which means you end up in the hospital with a bloodstream infection and a fever, and more neuropathy, meaning numbness and tingling in your hands and feet. 

And so, I really caution people to spread those therapies out over the first 90 days, and you’ll do better in terms of side effects, and just as well in terms of overall survival. 

Katherine:

Where does hormonal therapy fit into the treatment options, and have there been any advances in hormonal therapy? 

Dr. Paller:

Yes. So, hormonal therapy is the mainstay of how we take care of prostate cancer patients, whether we do this with surgical castration, which is not done very often anymore, or we do it with an LHRH agonist, or we do it with an LHRH antagonist. So, that means that we can do it with medicines that block the signaling, but that tells your body to produce testosterone in various ways. What’s really neat is we’ve made advances, that there are now oral options for some of these therapies. 

In particular, there’s a new therapy called Orgovyx, or relugolix, that is an oral LHRH antagonist that locks testosterone and allows us to stop prostate cancer growth. In addition, there are a variety of LHRH agonists that can be given as subcutaneous shots.