Table of Contents

Chapter 9: Emerging Therapies on the Horizon

Until now, we’ve been talking about treatment options that are regularly used for men with prostate cancer and how doctors have been working to optimize delivery of these drugs and improve outcomes in men at all stages of disease.

But in labs around the world, researchers are busy identifying new drugs, new regimens, and new treatment approaches that might prove beneficial to men with prostate cancer. As we’ll see, the process from lab to clinic is long and arduous, and not all drugs that seem promising in the lab end up working quite as well in people. Nevertheless, the potential ability to identify a new drug therapy that can help men live longer or have better quality of life even for a short amount of time is enough for these dedicated researchers to continue in their quest to find better treatments for prostate cancer.

Most of the investigational agents that we’ll review in this Chapter are being tested in men with advanced prostate cancer. Therapy options for men at this stage of disease are often not effective enough to halt progression of the disease, and men are typically affected by side effects from the disease and/or the medications that they’re taking. It’s therefore the perfect stage at which to test out new drugs because any improvement will likely be rapidly noticed and much appreciated.

Ultimately, however, none of the agents currently being investigated can ever come to benefit men with prostate cancer unless rigorous clinical trials are conducted.As you read through this Chapter and learn about new agents on the horizon, remember that none of the research would be possible without the help of the thousands of men who enrolled in clinical trials and joined the researchers in the fight against prostate cancer. (For more information about whether enrolling in a clinical trial might be right for you, turn to Chapter 10.)