ECCO Abstract No. 811: "ASCENT: A double-blinded randomized study of DN-101 (high-dose calcitriol) plus docetaxel vs. placebo plus docetaxel in androgen independent prostate cancer (AIPC)"
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Men with advanced prostate cancer who take an experimental, high-dose vitamin D pill with chemotherapy live about eight months longer than those receiving chemotherapy and placebo, according to a new study.
The pill is DN-101. Designed specifically as a cancer therapy, it is a unique form of calcitriol, a naturally occurring hormone and the biologically active form of vitamin D. Research also shows that DN-101 may protect against major side effects of chemotherapy.
"When DN-101 is added to chemotherapy, it provides a significant improvement in survival for advanced prostate cancer patients," said Tomasz Beer, M.D., national leader of the clinical trial and director of the Prostate Cancer Program in the Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute. "DN-101 extends lives and it may also protect against side effects of chemotherapy, providing a kind of one-two punch in cancer therapy."
Beer presented results from the AIPC Study of Calcitriol Enhancing Taxotere (ASCENT) on Wednesday, Nov. 2, at the 13th annual meeting of the European Cancer Conference (ECCO) in Paris. Christopher Ryan, M.D, member of the OHSU Cancer Institute, served as principal investigator at the OHSU study site.
ASCENT is a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate DN-101 given with docetaxel (Taxotere) for advanced prostate cancer research subjects who are no longer responding to hormonal therapy, a condition known as androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC). Two hundred, fifty subjects participated in the study at 48 sites between September 2002 and January 2004.
The estimated survival of subjects receiving DN-101 with docetaxel is 24.5 months. Those
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Contact: Rachel MacKnight
macknigh@ohsu.edu
503-494-8231
Oregon Health & Science University
2-Nov-2005