A blood test, performed when metastatic prostate cancer is first diagnosed, can predict which patients are likely to respond to treatment and survive the longest. It can help providers decide which patients should receive standard treatment versus who might stand to benefit from riskier, more aggressive new drug trials. The research, part of a phase 3 clinical trial funded in part by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health, was just published in JAMA Network Open.
Before it spreads, prostate cancer can be cured with surgery or radiation. Once the cancer has metastasized and is no longer curable, systemic treatments are used to prolong survival as much as possible. Biomarkers that predict how patients will respond could allow for better personalization of treatments, but they are few and far between.
A new study found that measuring circulating tumor cells (CTCs), rare cancer cells shed from tumors into the blood, is a reliable way to predict later treatment response and survival prospects. CTCs have been studied in prostate cancer before, but only in its later stages. No one, until now, has looked at whether CTC counts can be used right at the beginning, when a man first presents with metastatic prostate cancer, to tell us whether he's going to live a long or short time, or whether or not he will progress with therapies.
" Amir Goldkorn, MD, lead author of the study and associate director of translational sciences, USC Norris Comprehensive Canc.