A trial looking at tasquinimod for prostate cancer that has continued to grow despite hormone treatment

Cancer type:

Prostate cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 3

This trial looked at a new drug called tasquinimod for men whose prostate cancer had spread to another part of the body (metastatic or secondary cancer).

More about this trial

Prostate cancer can be treated with hormone therapy. But after some time, it may spread to another part of the body. This is castration resistant prostate cancer.

If this happens, doctors can give chemotherapy, steroids Open a glossary item or both.

But doctors are always looking for new ways to help men in this situation. In this trial, they looked at a drug called tasquinimod.

Tasquinimod works by blocking the growth of new blood vessels to the cancer. Cancers need new blood vessels to grow. Blocking the growth of new blood vessels may help stop the cancer from growing.

In this trial the researchers wanted to see if tasquinimod would stop castration resistant prostate cancer from growing.

Summary of results

The trial team concluded that tasquinimod could help men with castration resistant prostate cancer that spread to another part of the body. But it did not change the amount of time they lived.

This was an international phase 3 trial. 1245 men with prostate cancer that had spread to the bones took part.

It was a randomised trial. Men were put into 2 treatment groups by a computer:

tasquinimod
dummy drug (placebo )

Neither they nor their doctor could choose which group they were in. And neither they nor their doctor knew which group they were in during the trial. This is called a double blind trial.

Men were 2 times more likely to have tasquinimod than the dummy drug.

Diagram showing randomisation results

At the end of the trial, doctors found out which treatment the men had:

830 had tasquinimod
411 had the dummy drug
4 men didn’t have any treatment

The researchers looked at the average length of time men lived without any signs of their cancer getting worse. This is called progression free survival. They found it was:

7 months for men in the tasquinimod group
around 4 ½ months for men in the dummy drug group

They also looked at the amount of time men lived. This is called overall survival. They found it was:

around 21 ½ months for men in the tasquinimod group
24 months for men in the dummy drug group

Doctors also looked at the side effects men had. They found that the most common side effects of tasquinimod were:

feeling or being sick
tiredness (fatigue)
decreased appetite

Researchers concluded that although tasquinimod increased the length of time men lived without signs of their cancer getting worse. It did not help with the length of time men lived overall. Based on this they decided to stop studying tasquinimod in men with castration resistance prostate cancer.

We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.