Dr. George on Rationale for Abi Race Prostate Cancer Study

Daniel J. George, MD, professor of medicine and surgery, member, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses the rationale for the Abi Race study that looked at African-American patients and Caucasian patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

Background data suggested that African-American men were not only at higher risk for developing mCRPC, they were at much higher risk of dying from the disease, compared with Caucasian men. African-American men are 2.5 times more likely to die from mCRPC than Caucasian patients, and 5 times more likely than Asian-American men. Along with limited access to care and other important factors, researchers hypothesized that there must be a genetic difference between these patients. Furthermore, George says, African-American men are typically underrepresented in global clinical trials for mCRPC. In the COUGAR-302 study testing abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) only 2.6% of the patient cohort was African-American.

This small percentage of African-American patients had higher response rates and longer responses by prostate specific antigen, George says. These findings led to the Abi Race study.