A new study has found that the drug linferase used to treat breast and pancreatic cancer patients has also been found to be effective for patients with metastatic and resistant prostate cancer and has been able to reduce the risk of disease progression or mortality by 34%.
Prostate cancer is the most common malignant disease in men (over the age of 50), and is defined as the second most common cause of cancer mortality among men in the Western world.
The treatment for the disease today is chemical castration through hormonal therapy that suppresses the secretion of the male sex hormone - testosterone.
Although most patients respond to this treatment, about a third may develop resistance to hormone therapy, and are at risk for disease recurrence and metastasis.
In a row for prostate cancer patients, Photo: steve Zylius / UCI
In a new study presented at a cancer medicine conference in San Francisco in patients who received the drug Linferza the disease stopped for over two years (24.8 months) on average, compared to 16.6 months among patients who received the sham drug.
In fact, among patients who received "linferza" there was a 34% decrease in the chance of disease progression or mortality from it.
In the study, 400 castrated metastatic prostate cancer patients received the drug linferza in combination with another prostate cancer drug called abritron.
In the control group there were 400 patients who received a placebo with the drug Averitron.
The most common side effects among the group receiving the combination of the two drugs were anemia (45%), nausea (28%) and fatigue (28%).
Offices of the Association for the War on Cancer, Photo: Yehoshua Yosef
Prof. Fred Saad, lead researcher and director of the oncology department at Montreal Hospital: "It is clear that castration-resistant metastatic prostate cancer is a very bad disease. This group of patients. "
According to him, the findings of the study are expected to make the combination of the two drugs the preferred treatment option for these patients.
Prostate cancer caused about 375,000 deaths in 2020. In Israel in 2018, 2,717 cases of invasive prostate cancer were diagnosed.
It is first in prevalence in Jewish men and third in Arab men.
It is the fifth highest mortality rate and is responsible for about 8.5% of all cancer deaths in men.
Israel is considered one of the countries with the highest morbidity rates in this type of cancer (11th place).
Patients with advanced prostate cancer have a particularly poor prognosis and the five-year survival rate is considered very low.
The treatment with the drug "Linferza" is intended for patients who have been diagnosed with a mutation in the BRCA gene, which is mainly common among Jews.
Carriers of the BRCA mutation are 8.6 times more likely to develop prostate cancer.
The drug "Linferza" has been approved in the drug basket in Israel in recent years for patients with breast and ovarian cancer.
Dr. Meital Lebertowski, a senior physician in the unit for urinary tract and sex tumors at Sheba Medical Center: "This is very significant news.
This is the first time we see that drug treatment has been able to stop the aggravation of the disease in a period of more than two years.
In fact, we now have the option of giving better treatment to the same population group of prostate cancer patients who are resistant to hormonal therapies regardless of the type of mutation, "she said.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/S7ERVSCT4FUVX6R7TUVBDNTH5Y.jpg)
