Post by Tony Crispino on Jun 7, 2014 10:17:57 GMT -8
Hi everyone. I am out from under the super busiest week of the year. I attended as advertised the ASCO 2014 conference and there were some great things brought out for prostate cancer. The most significant presentations were the following:
1. The results of the CHAARTED trial was presented by Dr. Sweeney. As expected, for men with extensive mets at diagnosis, the survival benefit for adding docetaxel chemotherapy along with ADT with bicalutamide was enormous and will likely change the standard of care for those men. However, for men with less extensive mets the benefits were not there. But a 14 month survival increase is better than any overall survival benefit since docetaxel was first approved for prostate cancer. That is very significant.
2. Biomarkers, biomarkers, biomarkers. The poster session was a 4 hour stint on Monday and there were many posters showing current trials, trial proposals, and releases of new biomarkers for PCa. Some were predicting the presence of PCa. Finding more prostate cancer is good if the patient needs treatment. But not so good when finding prostate cancer that would never harm the patient and resulting in unnecessary treatment. Where these markers will lead us in detection, treatment, monitoring, or prognosis is vey much unknown. But the efforts are there from the physician & research communities to improve where we are today. But it is a long road ahead still.
3. NCI Funding cuts were also a major discussion. This shows that cancer research has now taken a lower priority with healthcare in America. 25% of government grants will simply disappear. This will most likely affect the community practice participation in clinical trial research, but also other major proposed trials will not have to take a back seat. And example is a proposed trial for Viet Nam and even Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans and the effects exposure to harmful chemicals has on them oncologically. Sad but the healthcare priority is simply not cancer right now.
I will start posting on the posters in separate threads. There were a lot of good ones but I want to study them one by one and make for good post. Stay tuned.
1. The results of the CHAARTED trial was presented by Dr. Sweeney. As expected, for men with extensive mets at diagnosis, the survival benefit for adding docetaxel chemotherapy along with ADT with bicalutamide was enormous and will likely change the standard of care for those men. However, for men with less extensive mets the benefits were not there. But a 14 month survival increase is better than any overall survival benefit since docetaxel was first approved for prostate cancer. That is very significant.
2. Biomarkers, biomarkers, biomarkers. The poster session was a 4 hour stint on Monday and there were many posters showing current trials, trial proposals, and releases of new biomarkers for PCa. Some were predicting the presence of PCa. Finding more prostate cancer is good if the patient needs treatment. But not so good when finding prostate cancer that would never harm the patient and resulting in unnecessary treatment. Where these markers will lead us in detection, treatment, monitoring, or prognosis is vey much unknown. But the efforts are there from the physician & research communities to improve where we are today. But it is a long road ahead still.
3. NCI Funding cuts were also a major discussion. This shows that cancer research has now taken a lower priority with healthcare in America. 25% of government grants will simply disappear. This will most likely affect the community practice participation in clinical trial research, but also other major proposed trials will not have to take a back seat. And example is a proposed trial for Viet Nam and even Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans and the effects exposure to harmful chemicals has on them oncologically. Sad but the healthcare priority is simply not cancer right now.
I will start posting on the posters in separate threads. There were a lot of good ones but I want to study them one by one and make for good post. Stay tuned.