Cabazitaxel in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer

Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) has a poor prognosis and remains a significant therapeutic challenge. Prior to 2010, docetaxel chemotherapy was the only treatment shown to improve overall survival, symptom control and quality of life in patients with CRPC. Research efforts focused on overcoming chemoresistance to taxanes eventually led to the development of multiple novel anti-tumor agents, including cabazitaxel. Cabazitaxel has recently been shown to significantly improve overall survival compared with mitoxantrone in a large multicenter Phase III study. This article details the preclinical and clinical development of cabazitaxel and discusses the importance of this novel chemotherapy in CRPC. The authors also discuss the challenges now facing the future use of cabazitaxel in CRPC, including the determination of the optimal dose of cabazitaxel in patients with advanced CRPC, the ideal sequencing of cabazitaxel relative to other anti-tumor treatments, appropriate patient selection and novel strategies for the assessment of treatment response.