Dr. Armstrong on Sipuleucel-T in Prostate Cancer

Andrew J. Armstrong, MD, associate professor of medicine and surgery, Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, discusses sipuleucel-T (Provenge) for patients with prostate cancer.

Sipuleucel-T has been around for many years now, explains Armstrong. It is an FDA-approved, effective agent known to improve survival. Some of the most important data sets about who benefits more from this therapy than others have come from an analysis of a phase III study. This study investigated the prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-quartile data of patients with a low-disease burden, such as low PSA.

According to Armstrong, the median PSA in this phase III trial was about 20. In patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have a low PSA and are minimally symptomatic, had a survival benefit of 13 months as opposed to 2 months for those men who were selected for this therapy and their PSA was over 100. This suggests that early use of immune therapy may result in a greater survival benefit, says Armstrong.