CHICAGO — Patients with high risk prostate cancer that hasn’t spread typically have two standard treatment paths before them. Remove the prostate surgically, or do a combination of radiation therapy and hormone therapy. Now, with the results of a new phase 3 clinical trial, some oncologists believe a third option may soon be laid on the table: surgery with hormone therapy both before and after the operation.
The study, called the PROTEUS trial, found that combining two hormone therapies both before and after surgery was superior to just one hormone therapy before and after surgery in high risk, early stage prostate cases.
There is a range in how prostate cancer experts are interpreting the results, however. Many told STAT that they believed it would lead to a new standard of care, with Emmanual Antonarakis, a genitourinary medical oncologist at the University of Minnesota, calling it a “watershed moment” in prostate cancer in a New England Journal of Medicine editorial.
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