Dr. Oh on the Role of Docetaxel in Metastatic Hormone-Sensitive Prostate Cancer

William K. Oh, chief, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, professor of Medicine and Urology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, discusses the role of docetaxel in the treatment of patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.

While most oncologists have set their sights on targeted therapies or immunotherapy, Oh says it is still the era of chemotherapy in the treatment setting of prostate cancer, as the agent has demonstrated profound benefits when used in newly diagnosed patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.

The recent positive findings seen with docetaxel come from 2 large randomized trials: CHAARTED from the United States and STAMPEDE from the United Kingdom. In both studies, survival benefits were quite dramatic, according to Oh, reaching as much as 20 months of added benefit in the group of patients who received docetaxel early in the treatment cycle.

Oh says these results are particularly interesting because the agent has already been approved for the treatment of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) for over a decade. Unfortunately, though, there were multiple negative clinical trials that involved adding another agent to docetaxel in mCRPC. Thus, it came as a bit of a surprise to see that the addition of docetaxel early on led to such benefits.

Oncologists may not be curing these patients, says Oh, but they are delaying disease progression enough to see significant survival benefits.