DEAR Study Offers ‘Hope’ to Patients With Non-Metastatic CRPC

Data from the DEAR study (NCT05362149) indicate that patients with non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) receiving darolutamide (Nubeqa) are able to stay on treatment longer, experience disease control, and maintain positive quality of life, thus offering hope to the population, according to Alicia K. Morgans, MD, MPH.

In a population of 870 patients, 30.4% discontinued treatment with darolutamide compared with 40.8% of those treated with enzalutamide (Xtandi) and 46.0% of those treated with apalutamide (Erleada). Additionally, progression events occurred in 17.7% vs 28.3% vs 27.8% of patients in each arm, respectively.

Morgans, medical director of the Survivorship Program and a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as a member of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, also detailed how research in the prostate cancer space is ramping up to potentially lead to a cure in the future.

Transcript:

The DEAR study is interesting from a patient perspective because it really reflects what's happening in clinics around the United States, and not just what's happening in 1 doctor's office with 1 or 2 patients. [There are] 870 patients in this particular analysis. One of the other things that's really important from the DEAR study is that, in general, patients are able to stay on their drugs. There is some discontinuation. It can be [potentially] different between these different drugs but overall, patients are staying on these drugs. They're staying on [them] for a long time, and the drugs seem to be benefiting patients in a way that is also compatible with a good [adverse] effect [AE] profile. [The drugs] help patients to feel well.

There's a lot of hope that is wrapped up in the DEAR study. Patients can stay on their treatment for non-metastatic CRPC, hopefully have good disease control, prevent complications of their prostate cancer, and do so in a way that makes sense for them in terms of maintaining good quality of life with relatively good [AE] profiles.

Research in prostate cancer is really rapidly progressing in so many ways. It's really exciting and brings new advances almost every day to what we do and is also not just showing us what to do in terms of findings in a laboratory but really affecting what we do in our clinics and how we care for our patients. We hope, someday, to be in a situation where we can cure people from prostate cancer at much higher rates than we currently can. I hope that we continue to move the needle, curing more and more [patients with] prostate cancer every day.

Reference

Morgans AK, Shore ND, Khan N, et al. Comparative real-world (RW) evidence on darolutamide (Daro), enzalutamide (Enza), and apalutamide (Apa) for patients (Pts) with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC) in the United States: DEAR. J Clin Oncol. 2023;41(suppl 16):5097.