For the first time, an experimental drug has extended the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer who are no longer responding to other treatments and are out of options for fighting the disease, a company-led study found.
The benefit was modest � an extra 10 weeks � but cancer specialists were excited because no chemotherapy until now has been shown to boost survival in such men. And like any new drug tested on worst-case patients, there are hopes it will do better when tested in men who aren�t as sick.
The drug is cabazitaxel, made by the French company Sanofi-Aventis SA. The U.S federal Food and Drug Administration has said it will give it a quick review which means it could be on the market soon.
In the study, the drug reduced the risk of dying during roughly one year of treatment by 30 percent, compared to another chemotherapy medicine that eases symptoms but does not prolong life, said Dr. Oliver Sartor of New Orleans� Tulane University.
He led the study and gave results in a telephone news conference Wednesday. They were expected to be presented at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and several other groups last month. The study was sponsored by Sanofi, and most of the researchers work or consult for the firm.
Sanofi would not give a price estimate for the drug, which it plans to name Jevtana. Its potential market is around 15,000 to 20,000 men in the United States each year, Sartor said.
Prostate cancer is usually treated with surgery, radiation or medicine that blocks testosterone, a hormone that helps the cancer grow. When those fail, or if the cancer has spread so much that surgery won�t help, the only approved treatment is docetaxel, sold as Taxotere by Sanofi.
The study involved 755 men from several dozen countries. All were given prednisone, which eases pain and improves appetite. They also were given either periodic infusions of cabazitaxel or mitoxantrone, a chemo therapy.
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