Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium: Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center
Abstract
Prostate cancer usually grows very slowly and can often be cured with surgery or radiation or both. However, once the cancer spreads beyond the prostate to bones and other parts of the body, the treatment objective turns from cure to extending survival while maximizing quality of life. Fortunately, researchers have discovered a variety of new treatments that extend survival for patients with advanced prostate cancer. We are looking at combinations of cancer therapies to improve treatment outcomes and discover markers in the blood that help patients and physicians to monitor prostate cancer. Many of those new treatments and important biomarkers have been discovered and developed through the joint efforts of a consortium of 10 leading cancer centers supported by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The DOD Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium (PCCTC) members share scientific knowledge to accelerate drug or biomarker discovery and then jointly recruit patients to the most promising clinical trials in order to accelerate trial completion to aid in drug discovery. Each site is supported by a grant from DOD that establishes the infrastructure to support collaboration and multi-site clinical trial management. From the PCCTC’s beginning in 2005, the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (JHKCC) has been among the most productive members, bringing 38 new trials to the consortium and accruing more than 900 patients to trials sponsored by the consortium. As the consortium enters a new cycle of trials, we have already identified trials of innovative immunotherapies, new DNA repair inhibitors and biomarkers for understanding genetic mutations where DNA repair inhibition is and is not effective. We are also planning to test combinations of androgen-receptor targeted therapies with these innovative treatments. But perhaps our most interesting innovation is called bipolar androgen therapy (BAT), where patients whose disease has progressed after taking androgen-receptor directed therapies can be resensitized to those drugs through cycling of high-dose testosterone treatments. Importantly early evidence shows that testosterone cycling may actually outperform some standard of care therapies while improving quality of life. We will be proposing two new BAT trials to the consortium – one focused on determining whether patients with specific genetic anomalies respond better to BAT therapy and another in combination with bone-directed therapies. If these trials and other BAT trials are successful and validated in Phase III trials, BAT treatments may extend survival and improve quality of life for a large fraction of prostate patients with advanced prostate cancer. We are also expanding our Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen imaging, which substantially improves the ability to identify small metastases, and treatment options to help facilitate more combination clinical trials. Adding to these efforts is our extensive program to increase minority participation in our trials, ranging from transportation stipends to remote recruitment. We hope to ensure that the treatments and biomarkers we develop are appropriate and effective for all patients, including Black and other minority patients.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 28, 2022
- Source ID
- W81XWH2220024
Entities
People
- Channing J Paller
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University
- United States Army