SIMILAR CLINICAL OUTCOMES IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND NON-AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES TREATED WITH SURAMIN FOR METASTATIC PROSTATE-CANCER

African-American males have a higher incidence of prostate cancer than non-African-American males and an overall poorer prognosis. Environme ntal factors such as socioeconomic status and biological factors such as an increased frequency of androgen receptor mutation have been iden tified as causal. As androgen ablation therapy is ubiquitous in the tr eatment of metastatic prostate cancer, little information is available on clinical outcome independent of hormone therapy. Our experience at the Warren G. Magnusson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Healt h with the anticancer agent, suramin, offers the opportunity to study clinical outcome in patients treated with an agent whose tumoricidal a ctivity is not dependent on androgen receptor function. Clinical outco me was examined retrospectively in 43 patients treated on a single sur amin-based protocol and evaluated as a Function of ethnic background. No significant difference in time to disease progression or survival w as observed between African Americans (n=4) and the other 39 patients. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that therapies that work through mechanisms independent of the androgen receptor may resu lt in similar outcomes across ethnic groups.