A New Era in Metastatic Prostate Cancer: The Combination of Chemotherapy and Hormonal Treatment as Initial Treatment

Abstract

In recent years, studies have been reported about the combination of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and different chemotherapy modalities as the initial therapy in newly-diagnosed patients with hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer and recently, possible effects of docataxel chemotherapy in combination with ADT was evaluated in the 2 multi-institutional randomized trials from North America (CHAARTED) and Europe (GETUG-AFU-15). We reviewed the data for the current use of chemo-hormonal therapy as the initial treatment modality in castration-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer. New findings of CHAARTED trial showed that combination of ADT with docetaxel chemotherapy conferred a significant median over-all survival benefit over ADT alone and patients with high-volume disease derived a 17-month gain in median over-all survival. However in GETUG trial, while no over-all survival benefit was observed between two groups however combination therapy was associated with an improvement in biochemical and clinical progression-free survivals. The combination of docetaxel-based chemotherapy with ADT as the initial treatment seems as a promising treatment alternative in patients with hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer, especially in patients with high-volume disease.