Novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer

Abstract

Prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in men in developed countries. Once the tumor has achieved a castration-refractory metastatic stage, treatment options are limited with the average survival of patients ranging from two to three years only. Recently, new drugs for treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) have been approved, and others are in an advanced stage of clinical testing. In this review we provide an overview of the new therapeutic agents that arrived in the clinical praxis or are tested in clinical studies and their mode of action including hormone synthesis inhibitors, new androgen receptor blockers, bone targeting and antiangiogenic agents, endothelin receptor antagonists, growth factor inhibitors, novel radiotherapeutics and taxanes, and immunotherapeutic approaches. Results and limitations from clinical studies as well as future needs for improvement of CRPC treatments are critically discussed.

Keywords: AR; Androgen receptor; Bone metastasis angiogenesis; CRPC; Castration-resistant prostate cancer; Chemotherapy; ET; Growth factor receptor inhibitors; IGF; Immunotherapy; OS; PCa; PDGFR; PFS; PSA; RANK ligand; RANK-L; Radiotherapy; SD; TKI; VEGF; VEGFR; androgen receptor; castration-resistant prostate cancer; endothelin; insulin-like growth factor; overall survival; platelet-derived growth factor receptor; progression free survival; prostate cancer; prostate-specific antigen; stable disease; tyrosine kinase inhibitor; vascular endothelial growth factor; vascular endothelial growth factor receptor.