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PSA level to scan on recurrence – Axumin v PSMA; generic abiraterone; Yonsa; 50 yr old Dx with lymph node Mx; gall bladder issues; progression after carboplatin + etoposide; progression on Xtandi
AnCan’s good buddy and Advanced Prostate Cancer Virtual Group participant, Jerry Deans – who also happens to be Vice Chair of our partner UsTOO’s Board – has been using a wonderful service, Mercy Medical Angels for some time. He recently wrote to us:
I want people to know about a service that is being offered to those who qualify financially or are veterans. It’s called Mercy Medical Angels https://mercymedical.
Some of you may already know that AnCan is privileged to partner with the Male Breast Cancer Coalition to offer a men’s virtual breast cancer support group. While the incidence is much lower in men, all too often we forget that breast cancer hits men as well as women. If you heard our presentation on immuno-oncology this past week, you would have heard me remind our illustrious presenter that too!
My radar is now tuned to male breast cancer, so it is not too surprising I caught a report on Cancer Network today reporting a study that reveals that when compared to women men have significantly worse overall survival from breast cancer. And this is still true when disease demographics are matched up. Read the Cancer Network report here that links to the original study.
Buried in all of this is what I suspect to be the reason men fare worse than women ….. they are diagnosed later at a more advanced stage. That is through no fault of MBCC who strives to make us all aware of male breast cancer!
Bottom line: Dr. Maha Hussain states that olaparib (Lynparza) for patients with selected DNA damage repair gene alterations (BRCA1/2, ATM) should represent a new standard of care for mCRPC patients who have progressed on abiraterone or enzalutamide, regardless of prior treatment with taxane chemotherapy. This bodes well for eventual FDA approval of olaparib for metastatic, castrate-resistant prostate cancer patients who harbor DNA Damage Repair (DDR) mutations.
Details:
The PROfound study is a Phase III, randomized, multicenter trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of the PARP inhibitor olaparib versus physician’s choice of enzalutamide or abiraterone acetate in pre-treated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients with a qualifying homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene mutation.
In order to be included in the study, patients had to have mCRPC, have had disease progression on either enzalutamide or abiraterone, and have alterations in one more pre-selected DNA damage repair genes as assayed by the customized FoundationOne® sequencing test (https://www.foundationmedicine.com/ ). Patients with a DNA damage repair (DDR) alteration were stratified into 2 cohorts: (1) Cohort A with BRCA1, BRCA2 or ATM alterations, as these have the strongest preclinical and prior trial support data, and (2) Cohort B with 12 other DDR alterations. Both cohorts proved superior to treatment with enzalutamide or abiraterone + prednisone, but Cohort A (BRCA1/2, ATM) demonstrated the best response.
Treatment in these cohorts were reasonably well tolerated in this group of patients, though more adverse events were reported in the olaparib arm than in the Abi/Enza arm. Anemia, nausea, fatigue, asthenia and decreased appetite were the most common adverse effects, with anemia seen in 21% of patients.
For the full summary of the trial presented at ESMO 2019 Conference, click here: http://tiny.cc/Olaparib
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Hear Dr. Ben Ho Park and Dr. Jay Harness discuss genetics, genomics, nipple sparing surgery and more on MBCC’s virtual support group.
Just click here to listen to the 60′ recording and read the transcript where you can search by word.
While you are here, sign up for the AnCan Blog in the right sidebar! Don’t see it – well that’s because we’re fixing it and it will be back soon!
NB This recording is only available for 12 months before GoToMeeting wipes it away!
AnCan Webinar
DR. LARRY FONG EXPLAINS IMMUNO-ONCOLOGY
To replay the webinar presentation, please click here. We recommend you download the Presentation Slide Deck to follow along – FongAnCan9-2019 .
AnCan is excited to host one of the World’s leading cancer immunologists, Professor Dr. Larry Fong . Not just a leading researcher in the field of immuno-oncology, AnCan’s good friend Larry is a highly compassionate genitourinary clinician who has treated several of our participants over many years. We are honored to have Larry as an Advisory Board Member,
Dr. Fong is the Co-Director and Medical Director the UCSF Cancer Immunotherapy Program, one of 5 Centers privileged to be part of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. While professionally he now has a pan-cancer focus, Larry’s sub-specialty is prostate cancer. He was the Principle Investigator for Sipileucel-T (Provenge) , the first therapeutic cancer vaccine to be approved by the FDA back in 2010!
As you see above, Larry loves to smile – what a gift in the field of oncology! Not only does he smile often – he also has a great sense of humor. There’s a wonderful story behind this heart-warming pix with our dear, departed buddy, Jerry Carniglia – listen in to hear it! Amongst Jerry’s many talents, he was a collectible fine artist; this video, shown at a posthumous show at the Townsend Gallery on UC Berkeley campus, will make you smile and cry! Jerry’s Trust has donated some 18 enormous canvasses for display on rotation in the brand new Bakar Precision Medicine Building.
Dr. Fong will first explain the principles behind immuno-oncology in understandable terms with a pan cancer focus. He will then take questions on specific disease – BUT PLEASE keep your questions general rather than case specific.
Yet again, our Moderator Peter Kafka offers wise words from his group meting reminder that many of you will find true! Thank you Peter …..
All of us in the AnCan community are volunteers. At this juncture none of us are paid to moderate our calls or assist others in navigation or advocacy with their cancer journey. This might change at some point as finances permit and circumstances evolve, but for now we remain no less passionate or committed to our calling. There are of course benefits to the work we do, and for me one of the great benefits I have come to know is new friendships. The men and women I have come to know through this work in these past five years have made a great impact on my life.
Friendship is an interesting human cultural phenomenon. It is often noted that women tend to form closer and longer lasting friendships than men. Men can become “lone wolves” in society, particularly as we age and our boyhood friendships fall away. It takes work and commitment to initiate and maintain friendships as we grow older and our life purposes change and evolve.
The notion that new and significant friendships can form in the autumnal days of our lives is a foreign concept to most men. The idea that there are men who are committed to being of help to perfect strangers who are trying to find their way through the weeds of prostate cancer decisions can no doubt seem suspicious. “What’s the catch?” Simply put, there is no catch! For some unknown reason this disease seems to have propelled quite a few of us into a place where we just want to help others as best we can.
I always look forward to these on-line/telephone AnCan meetings. Even though most of us are separated by many miles and may never meet each other in person, strong bonds are sometimes formed and significant friendships result. Maybe I should end this with a string of clichés; We are not ships passing in the night – but rather all in the same boat and pulling for each other.
We at AnCan through our online/telephone weekly support meetings and advocacy work hard as peers to provide whatever support and backup as we can in your journey with prostate cancer. But we don’t claim to have all the answers. We encourage you to share your experiences. We learn from each other. Keep connected, information is power! We are always there for you.
Contents …..
Brain mets radiation; Intermittent Hormone Therapy – is there a PSA bench mark to resume?; pancreatic cyst; darolutamide/Nubeqa; post-BAT treatment path; Lu177 ; T4 remission is possible!; Debulking the primary; abi after enz fails – what next?
At ASCO 2019, Dr. Oliver Sartor gave a presentation on the final PROCEED registry data which tracked Overall Survival (OS) of African American (AA) and Caucasian (CAU) men with mCRPC after receiving Provenge (sipuleucel-T).
The median overall survival (OS) for AA patients was 35.2 months and the median OS for CAU patients was 25.8 months. And it appears that the lower your PSA is at the time of initiation of Provenge therapy, the longer will be the OS time. For the lowest PSA quartile, which were the men with a PSA of less than 8 ng/ml, the median OS for AA men was 54.3 months and for CAU men, the OS was 37.4 months. So why do I say that Provenge is looking better than ever? Because the “registry trial” for Provenge, the one which prompted the FDA to approve Provenge in 2010, the median OS was calculated to be just 4.1 months. The bottom line here is that you should try to get Provenge as soon as you learn you are metastatic castrate resistant (mCRPC).
To read the full article, click here: http://tiny.cc/Provenge
Dr. William Matsui
Gary Petersen
Cynthia Chmielewski
Jack Aiello
Shweta Mishra