[Therapy of hormone refractory prostate carcinoma with mitoxantrone. A clinical phase II study]

So far, no curative treatment is available for hormone-refractory prostate carcinoma. Therapy is thus focused on alleviating symptomatic tumor progression with the aim of improving quality of life. Therefore, anthracyclin-derived mitoxantrone was administered to 25 patients with hormone-refractory prostate carcinoma and symptomatic progressive disease. After a median treatment of 13 weeks, a median of 4 cycles and a follow-up of 14 months, 48% of the patients (12/25) reported improvement in tumor-related pain; in 60% (15/25) there was improvement of the self-assessment symptom score and 32% of the patients (8/25) gained weight. Additionally, partial tumor response with regression of lymph-node metastases occurred in 3/25 patients (12%). In 10/25 patients the serum level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) decreased as well as the alkaline phosphatase (AP) in 7/25 patients. Side effects subsequent to chemotherapy were leucopenia WHO grade III in 25% of the patients and thrombocytopenia WHO grade III in 3/25 and grade V (treatment-related death) in 1/25 patients. Non-hematological toxicity occurred in 2 patients (cardiotoxicity n = 1, nephrotoxicity n = 1, WHO grade II each).