Dr. Morgan on Enrolling Patients With Prostate Cancer onto Clinical Trials

Alicia Morgan, MD, Mather Hospital, discusses enrolling patients with prostate cancer onto clinical trials investigating PARP inhibitors.

According to Morgan, medical oncologists and urologists need to think strongly about getting genomic and genetic sequencing data for their patients as they are approaching a time when they might use PARP inhibitors. For most community oncologists, this is going to be after they have used FDA-approved agents, such as enzalutamide (Xtandi), abiraterone acetate (Zytiga), and chemotherapy, as well as our other therapies, such as immunotherapies and pharmaceutical options.

If the physician can receive the genomic and genetic sequencing data, they might be able to get off-label PARP inhibitors, says Morgan. It is important to advise patients to go to a clinical trial at an academic center to get more data with PARP inhibitors.

One of the challenges that is seen for men with prostate cancer is there are so many trials available with PARP inhibitors that there is a concern that there may be too many trials and not enough patients. Morgan encourages urologists and medical oncologists with any interest in this to identify their patients. For those patients who are able to enroll, the oncologists could try to get them to clinical trials to help build the data to move this field forward.