Researchers said that older drugs like Docetaxel are not to be disregarded for cancer treatment since they might still work when paired with any form of therapy.
A study spearheaded by Dr. Nicholas J. Vogelzang from the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada had shown that prostate cancer patients who were administered with the local drug Docetaxel lived for 55 months while those who did not receive the drug lived for 44 months.
Docetaxel is now offered in generic form; hence it can be bought for a lower cost. This information about the drug and its positive effects came as one of the most interesting in the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology held in Chicago.
Every treatment using the drug would cost $1,500, much less than what is paid for its newer equivalents.
Vogelzang also added that the use of the drug along with the other treatment options will make waves in prostate cancer treatment. He quipped that the only challenge is to make patients agree to it. As of today, he added, there are only a few patients who would like to undergo chemotherapy.
This particular treatment can be done on patients whose cancer spread beyond the prostate when diagnosed or those that have cancer recurrence after having gone through radiation therapy or surgery or those that are not up for hormone therapy.
It's more likely that more men would be suffering from metastatic prostate cancer during screening since the government has regulated regular screening with the premise that screening tests would only cause harm than save prostate cancer patients.
The newer cancer medicines are Johnson & Johnson's Zytiga and Medivation and Astellas Pharma's Xtandi. There are studies continuously done to find out if such medications would also work to treating prostate cancer when they are administered earlier.
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