Dr. Petrylak Discusses the Future of Abiraterone Acetate

Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, Professor of Medicine, Program Director, Genitourinary Oncology Section, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center, expects exciting information to be presented at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting on abiraterone acetate (Zytiga), for chemotherapy-naïve patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Early evidence from the phase III COU-AA-302 trial suggests that the combination of abiraterone acetate and prednisone improves progression-free survival and is showing trends towards an improvement in overall survival.

Abiraterone acetate is currently approved following progression on chemotherapy. Petrylak feels that data from the COU-AA-302 trial will justify the early use of abiraterone acetate and that it may replace ketoconazole as the first hormone therapy that patients receive following disease progression.