Dr. Charles Ryan on Abiraterone in mCRPC

Charles J. Ryan, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Urology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), discusses the effects he has seen abiraterone have in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

Ryan has seen a variety of outcomes in patients treated with abiraterone as a result of the COU-AA-302 study. For patients with an extremely sensitive form of disease, abiraterone may provide long-term benefits.

The average radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS) was 16.5 months, and Ryan says half of the study’s patients have surpassed that timeframe. Anecdotally, Ryan says he has had patients who have been treated with abiraterone for three years. On the contrary, Ryan has also seen patients with mCRPC have no benefit from abiraterone and have immediate disease progression.

Researchers are currently studying the development of predictive markers and/or biological signals regarding resistance mechanisms.