Emerging treatment options for prostate cancer

Prostate cancer treatment has rapidly evolved in the past few years. Androgen deprivation therapy has been the backbone of treatment for locally advanced and metastatic prostate cancer, but incremental benefits in survival have been shown by adding androgen-receptor pathway inhibitors (ARPI) across various spectrums of disease state. In addition, docetaxel chemotherapy remains the first-line chemotherapy regimen available with survival benefits shown with triplet therapy in those who are chemotherapy eligible. However, disease progression remains inevitable and novel agents such as radioligand therapy with lutetium have shown improvement in survival.

This review discusses the pivotal trials that led to the U.S. FDA approval of agents utilized in metastatic prostate cancer and explores the use of novel agents including prostate-specific membrane antigen-targeting agents, radioligands, cell-based therapy, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, BiTE, and antibody drug conjugates.

Treatment landscape for metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) has evolved beyond additional agents with ARPI and/or docetaxel, including other treatments with sipuleucel-T, radium, cabazitaxel, PARP inhibitors, and lutetium, which have specific indications and roles in sequencing. Novel therapies remain critically needed after progression from lutetium.