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Chemoprevention of prostate cancer: lessons learned
Author(s) -
Thompson Ian M.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
bju international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.773
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1464-410X
pISSN - 1464-4096
DOI - 10.1111/j.1464-410x.2007.06946.x
Subject(s) - medicine , prostate cancer , prostate disease , gynecology , oncology , cancer
A challenge to the prevention of prostate cancer is its fundamental basis; a man who is disease-free must take an agent that might have side-effects to reduce his risk of disease. Although the lifetime risk of prostate cancer in the USA is 18% [3], the converse is that the use of preventive agents in the USA is unnecessary in at least 82% of men. With this in mind, before the PCPT it was not certain whether chemoprevention studies could be completed, given that a healthy, asymptomatic population was required to be enrolled. Other challenges include the need for regular dosing, regular follow-up, and even prostate biopsy in some designs. Despite these challenges, three phase III studies and one relatively large phase IIB study were successfully completed, i.e. the PCPT (finasteride) [4], the REDUCE trial (dutasteride) [5], the SELECT trial (selenium, α -tocopherol) [6] and the GTX-006-211 (toremifene) [7].