Fighting Prostate Cancer with Radium-223 — Not Your Madame's Isotope
Mené sur 921 patients atteints d'un cancer de la prostate résistant à la castration et présentant des métastases osseuses, cet essai randomisé de phase III évalue l'efficacité, du point de vue de la survie globale, et la sécurité d'un traitement comportant des injections de radium-223
As each year ushers in new and innovative survival-enhancing treatments for castration-resistant prostate cancer with bone metastases, patients and their physicians have a sense of empowerment associated with this growing therapeutic arsenal.1-5 Nonetheless, nearly 30,000 men still die from prostate cancer every year, and many have debilitating illness from osseous involvement. For this latter group, Alpharadin in Symptomatic Prostate Cancer Patients, a randomized, placebo-controlled study reported by Parker et al. in this issue of the Journal, focuses on a new weapon in anticancer therapy.6
Radium-223 dichloride (radium-223), the first alpha emitter to undergo phase 3 testing and receive approval for clinical use, acts independently of cell cycles, surface markers, and tumor types. The simplicity of the alpha emitter radium-223 lies in its winning combination of a convenient half-life (11.4 days) and its inherent bone-seeking and potent DNA-damaging properties. The authors describe a well-executed international, multicenter trial showing an overall survival benefit associated with radium-223 in more than 900 patients with prostate cancer. The real-world applicability is undeniable; these patients had symptomatic skeletal disease and had received previous or concurrent complementary therapies...
New England Journal of Medicine , éditorial, 2012