CHEMOENDOCRINE THERAPY IN PATIENTS WITH STAGE D2 PROSTATE-CANCER

There have only been a few studies of chemo-endocrine therapy compared with endocrine therapy alone in newly diagnosed prostate cancer patie nts. We assessed the effects of these two therapies by comparing long- term survival rates. One hundred and twenty-nine patients were entered in this study between November 1977 and March 1992. Seventy-seven pat ients were treated with endocrine therapy alone. Other 52 patients rec eived chemo-endocrine therapy, which included orchiectomy and/or dieth ylstilbestrol diphosphate (DES-DP) plus Cisplatin, with or without oth er cytotoxic agents. All patients had bone metastasis at the beginning of the study. There was a significant difference in survival between patients who received endocrine therapy and chemo-endocrine therapy (P = 0.0078). That is, survival rate was superior for the chemoendocrine therapy patients throughout the entire follow-up period. These data s uggest that early chemo-endocrine therapy containing Cisplatin, with o r without maintenance chemotherapy, is a potentially effective treatme nt for newly diagnosed metastatic prostate cancer and is worth further investigation via a randomized trial. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.