Dr. Choudhury on the Use of Radiopharmaceuticals in Prostate Cancer

Atish D. Choudhury, MD, PhD, co-director of the Prostate Cancer Center, senior physician, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and instructor in medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses the use of radiopharmaceuticals in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer.

Radium-223 dichloride (Xofigo) is a radiopharmaceutical that has been shown to improve overall survival and decrease the rate of skeletal-related events in patients with metastatic prostate cancer. The agent was FDA approved in 2013 for the treatment of patients with symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that has spread to the bones but not to any other organs.

Radiopharmaceuticals that target prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and are conjugated to a radioactive isotype of lutetium seem to have pronounced activity in decreasing prostate specific antigen levels and inducing radiographic responses in a subset of patients, explains Choudhury. Now these agents are being tested in phase III trials to assess their activity in a randomized setting.