PSA Levels May Measure Treatment Efficacy

Columbia University Medical Center scientists say certain changes in PSA levels may serve as surrogate endpoints for prostate cancer survival.

The researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, members of the Southwest Oncology Group, are trying to speed the process of clinical trials and say the PSA biomarkers might be used to measure treatment efficacy.

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepts only survival as an endpoint of measure.

Dr. Daniel Petrylak, an associate professor, led researchers in analyzing the records of 551 men with prostate cancer. The scientists found there were several different changes in PSA levels, which could possibly serve as surrogate endpoints for survival.

The study is a follow-up to a landmark phase III trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year that found men with androgen-independent (hormone-refractory) metastatic prostate cancer who were treated with the chemotherapy drug Taxotere (docetaxel) Injection Concentrate in combination with the drug estramustine survived 20 percent longer than similar patients receiving the standard therapy.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. About 30,350 men will die of the disease this year alone.