Johnson & Johnson’s prostate cancer drug Erleada, used with standard home-blocking therapy before and after prostate surgery, reportedly significantly increases the chances of eliminating cancer and reduces the risk of death or disease progression.
While standard trials found patients taking the combination regimen to be nine times more likely to have detectable cancer in the prostate at the time of surgery than those using standard testosterone therapy alone, the overall risk of recurrence was also significantly reduced.
It was observed that patients who took a full year of combination therapy took an average of more than six years before they needed any subsequent treatment. The year-long treatment reduced the risk of cancer recurrence and death by 29%.
Surgery and radiation are currently the standard forms of care because in about half of those patients the cancer eventually comes back and requires further treatment.
Specifically, of the 330,000 people diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States, approximately 40% are high-risk patients.
“No ARPI is approved in combination with surgery or radiation for localized high-risk prostate cancer. So (the data) will change the paradigm,” said study lead researcher Dr. Mary-Ellen Taplin of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
Erleada has been approved by the US since 2018 for later stages of cancer. Following these news trial results, J&J plans to coordinate with international regulators to expand global approval to treat these earlier, higher-risk local stages.
