Oliver Sartor, MD, medical director, Tulane Cancer Center, describes the patients that were included in the phase III ALSYMPCA trial that examined radium-223 (Alpharadin), an experimental radiopharmaceutical, for symptomatic hormone refractory prostate cancer with skeletal metastases.

The inclusion criteria for the trial resulted in two groups of patients, those that had already received docetaxel and progressed and those deemed unfit to receive docetaxel.

The trial enrolled 922 men that were randomized 2:1 to receive either the current standard of care plus radium-223 or placebo. The experimental arm resulted in a 2.8-month median increase in progression-free survival and an increase of 5.2 months until the first skeletal related event.

Sartor notes that in the US only 55-60% of patients are deemed fit to receive docetaxel. These criteria resulted in a large number of patients being eligible to participate in the ALSYMPCA trial.