A trial of MDV3100 for men who have already had chemotherapy for prostate cancer that is not responding to hormone therapy

Cancer type:

Prostate cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 3

This trial looked at a new drug called MDV3100 for prostate cancer that had got worse despite hormone therapy and chemotherapy.

Prostate cancer depends on the male hormone testosterone Open a glossary item for its growth. Doctors use different types of hormone therapy either to reduce the amount of testosterone in the body, or to stop it reaching the cancer cells. This can shrink a prostate cancer or slow its growth.

Hormone therapy usually works well, but after a while prostate cancer may stop responding to this type of treatment. In this situation, you may have chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy can also help to slow down the growth of prostate cancer, but doctors are looking for new treatments to help men who have already had chemotherapy. In this trial, they looked at a new hormone therapy drug called MDV3100.

There are receptors on the surface of prostate cancer cells that testosterone attaches to. MDV3100 blocks these receptors and stops testosterone getting into the cells. It is called an ‘androgen-receptor signaling inhibitor’.

The aim of this trial was to see if MDV3100 helped men with prostate cancer to live longer.

Summary of results

The trial team found that MDV3100 did help men to live longer with prostate cancer that continued to grow after treatment with standard hormone therapy and chemotherapy.

This trial recruited 1,199 men. It was a randomised trial. The men were put into 1 of 2 groups. Neither the men, nor their doctors, knew which group they were in. This is called a double blind trial.

Men in group 1 had MDV3100. Men in group 2 had a dummy drug (placebo).

After treatment the overall average amount of time the men lived was

Just over 1½ years for those who had MDV3100
Just over 1 year for those who had the dummy drug

The trial team concluded that MDV3100 significantly improves the overall amount of time that men with prostate cancer lived.

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