Historically, systemic therapy for metastatic and advanced prostate cancer has involved androgen suppression. In metastatic disease, this palliative therapy has yielded a median progression-free survival of 18-20 months and an overall survival of 24-36 months. However, virtually all patients develop hormone-refractory disease. Although hormone therapy is associated with significant responses, its curative potential is limited because of the inherent heterogeneity of prostate cancer and the inability of hormones to eradicate all prostate cancer clones, both the androgen-dependent and androgen-independent components.
Because a high-fat diet is linked with a higher incidence of prostate cancer, a low-fat diet may be beneficial for patients at high risk of developing prostate cancer (namely those with a positive family history and black men) and patients undergoing treatment of advanced prostate cancer.
In some cases of hormone-refractory prostate cancer, the prostate cancer may continue to exhibit hormone dependence. Currently, predicting whether these patients may benefit from androgen withdrawal versus continued hormone therapy is not possible.
For more on the treatment of advanced prostate cancer, read here.
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Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.
Cite this: Bradley Schwartz. Fast Five Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Advanced Prostate Cancer - Medscape - Nov 16, 2017.
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