ABSTRACT
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Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in men and accounts for nearly 232,090 new
cases and approximately 30,350 deaths in the United States during the year 2005 alone.1 For
patients with localized disease, primary treatment with surgery or radiation therapy can be
offered, but despite our best efforts, as many as 40% of these men experienced biochemical
failure as evident by a rise in their serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA).2 For patients with
advanced or recurrent disease, standard initial therapy consists of androgen deprivation
therapy. Whereas the majority of patients respond to androgen ablation, eventually all
patients develop hormone-refractory prostate cancer (HRPC) after a median of months.3
Chemotherapy is typically reserved for symptom palliation in patients with metastatic HRPC.
More recently, chemotherapy with docetaxel has been shown to provide a significant, but
modest, improvement in median survival.4,5 Nevertheless, for patients with metastatic HRPC,
the overall median survival remains poor at around 18 months. Clearly, newer therapies for
prostate cancer are needed.
