Speedy OK for prostate remedy

A NEW prostate cancer drug that has been found to dramatically extend the lives of men with the disease has been fast tracked onto the Australian market.

Studies have found that Erlyand delays prostate cancer from spreading to other organs in the body by more than three years after surgery.

In high-risk men not using the treatment, the cancer typically spreads within 16 months and they die two years later.

A trial involving more than 1200 patients found risk of death or cancer spreading beyond the prostate was 70 per cent lower among those using the drug.

The drug will help about 6000 men a year who have high-risk, non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

All the men in the trial continued to receive standard androgen deprivation therapy as well as the new drug.

Dr Paul Mainwaring, from the Mater and Canossa Private Hospitals in Brisbane, supervised the treatment of 40 Australian men who took part in the trial.

“This is a big step forward for men with high-risk prostate cancer,” he said. “None have died of prostate cancer in the trials that have been going for eight years across the globe,” he said.

The trial began in October 2013 and some men are taking the tablets with no sign of metastatic disease (cancer that has spread beyond the prostate), he said.

“If you get the drug early it slows the cancer down in an incredible way,” he said.

The medicine works by blocking the action of testosterone in prostate cancer cells and preventing the hormone androgen, which plays a role in prostate cancer growth, from binding to the androgen receptor.

The $45,000 a year drug

NONE HAVE DIED OF PROSTATE CANCER IN THE TRIALS THAT HAVE BEEN GOING FOR EIGHT YEARS ACROSS THE GLOBE

DR PAUL MAINWARING

was approved for sale on the Australian market in record time this month under a new initiative that allows Australian regulators to share drug approval work with other countries.

It normally takes on average 11 months to approve new medications for sale but because our Therapeutic Goods Administration shared the workload with Canada’s drug regulator it took just four months to gain approval.

“Hats off to the Government,” Dr Mainwaring said.

“This is a really important step forward as global co-operation has allowed early access to the drug.”