Dr. Fleming Discusses Importance of QoL in Prostate Cancer

Mark T. Fleming, MD, medical oncologist, Virginia Oncology Associates, associate chair, Genitourinary Research Committee, US Oncology Network, discusses the focus on quality of life (QoL) in recent prostate cancer clinical trials.

The treatment of prostate cancer has essentially circled back from where it started, Fleming says. When docetaxel was first FDA-approved in 2014 for the treatment of patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive disease, there was a QoL component that garnered attention due to the traditional belief that chemotherapy is detrimental towards QoL.

This is particularly important to remember for asymptomatic patients because physicians need to balance how they tolerate treatment with its efficacy. In today’s landscape, physicians are having more in-depth conversations with their patients in terms of tolerability, cost, and other important factors in order to inform treatment decisions, Fleming says.