Each year, there are about 50,000 new cases of prostate cancer, of which about 3,000 involve metastases, and 9,000 deaths. If caught early enough, its prognosis at 5 years is excellent: more than 80% survival. It is the most common male cancer, most often asymptomatic. In fact, it can spread without being detected in time, especially among men around 70, average age of metastatic prostate cancer. In this case, it is estimated that 30% of patients die 4 to 5 years after diagnosis. To take care of it at best, at this stage, a recent study unveiled at the European Congress of Oncology, ESMOoffers a three-dimensional approach, as France Inter points out. Explanations.
From 2 to 3 simultaneous treatments
Until now, there were several treatment options for prostate cancer. Hormone therapy, with the aim of suppressing the production of hormones to stop tumor progression, chemotherapy, or a combination of the two. It is also possible to treat a patient with the combination of two different types of hormone therapy. In case of metastases, chemotherapy and hormone therapy were systematically applied together.
But research continues to advance and doctors from the Gustave Roussy anti-cancer center have launched new trials to find an even more effective way to fight against prostate tumors and their metastases. They put in place a clinical trial, called “PEACE-1” with 1,173 men suffering from this disease, coming from various countries such as Ireland, Romania, Italy, Belgium, Spain, France. They were followed between November 2013 and December 2018.
Survival doubled
They divided them into four groups with different treatment options. Either the combination of hormone therapy and chemotherapy, or two hormone therapies and chemotherapy, or chemo, hormone therapy and radiotherapy, or all four options at the same time.
They then compared “cancer progression-free survival” between the different groups and found that the combination of chemo and two hormone therapies was very satisfying. With three treatments, healthy survival increases from two to four and a half years and sees the risk of tumor progression drop by 50%. Another indicator, for the “most serious cases with a lot of metastases”, life expectancy would also increase, by a year and a half : going from 3 and a half years to five years, with a risk of death which would decrease by 25%.
This advance, described by doctors as a rare advance, will soon become the new standard for treating this type of cancer.
Sources: France Inter, Urotoday ESMO 2021.
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