TITLE:
The Use of PSA Doubling Time to Predict Prognosis and the Use of PSA Response to Assess the Success for Prostate Cancer Patients Undergoing Docetaxel Chemotherapy
AUTHORS:
Sarp K. Keskin, Asif Yildirim, Cengiz Canakci, Ismail Ulus, Ramazan Gokhan Atis, Turhan Caskurlu
KEYWORDS:
Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer, Docetaxel, PSA Doubling Time, PSA Kinetics, Chemotherapy
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Cancer Therapy,
Vol.7 No.8,
August
18,
2016
ABSTRACT: In the targeted therapy era, it is critical to know the certain points to
start or discontinue chemotherapy for patients with castration resistant
metastatic prostate cancer. The prognostic factors to determine this response are
still not clear yet. We tried to find out if the PSA doubling time helps us to
predict the patients who will benefit from docetaxel chemotherapy most, and also
to question the value of the PSA response to
chemotherapy. Retrospectively, 70 patients who had hormone refractory
metastatic prostate cancer that were given at least 4 cycles of docetaxel
chemotherapy between 2002 and 2015 were evaluated. After the onset of
docetaxel, PSA response to therapy and overall survival rates were analyzed to
figure out if these parameters were related to PSA doubling time. The only
statistically significant prognostic parameter affecting overall survival was
the best PSA response rate to docetaxel chemotherapy being over or under 50%.
The most significant parameter that affects the PSA doubling time was the clinical stage at the time of diagnosis. PSA
doubling time is not a useful predictive tool for predicting response to
docetaxel. By means of overall survival, the clinical stage at the time of
diagnosis was the best predictive tool for our cohort. The best PSA response
rate to docetaxel chemotherapy was found to be a valuable parameter. The study
being retrospective and the low number of patients included in this
cohort can be the main weaknesses of this study. Further studies to determine
which other factors can be useful are needed.