New drug offers hope against prostate cancer

(How many patients were tested in test runs of this drug?) The first study looked at 21 patients and now we have tested 100 more, and just over 100 patients have been tested in North America. This study started in December 2005 and some of those patients are still on treatment. (What have the results been?) Importantly, all other treatments have stopped working. So that’s excited us and the scientific community. These are early days still, but larger studies started eight weeks ago. (What happened to those patients who responded? You say you saw results in 80% of the participants.) The trial published is 21 pages but we have run other trials. The results is blood tests have improved and patients have felt better and within six weeks they returned to their quality of life. This is also a tablet and doesn’t have side effects from chemotherapy. We’re not curing patients because the cancer does ultimately come back but we are still waiting to see how long the effect really lasts. (Why is it that a drug like this doesn’t factor for the long term?) Because cancer is smart and finds a way of getting around the treatments we bring to it.