Dr. Hussain on Potential of Enzalutamide in Prostate Cancer

Maha H. Hussain, MD, FACP, Genevieve Teuton Professor of Medicine, deputy director, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 2015 Giant of Cancer Care^® in Genitourinary Cancers, discusses the potential of enzalutamide (Xtandi) in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer.

In July 2018, the FDA approved enzalutamide for the treatment of patients with non—metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, based on health-related quality of life data from the PROSPER trial. An important step in moving this agent forward, Hussain says, will be the release of the survival data from this study. Data presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting indicated that enzalutamide significantly improved the primary endpoint of metastases-free survival, compared with placebo. Without metastases, Hussain says, the risk of dying from prostate cancer simply is not there.

The future steps for enzalutamide are two-fold, Hussain adds. One would be to move the agent to an earlier phase of treatment, and the second would be to see how it can impact patients who don’t have metastases, but still have castrate-level testosterone.