Abiraterone to be available for high risk patients in England

A quick skim suggests no more efficacious than darolutamide (which was approved for a wider audience than previously in October last year). It is however I think cheaper than darolutamide  -  I'm hoping I don't get changed on to it from darolutamide on cost grounds!

I was on abiraterone in 2022 on a trial called the Amplitude trial. The drug was a good fit for me and had little for me to moan about. I had stage four aggressive cancer that had metastasised only into my bones. There was a strict PSA limit which I hit after 15 months.

The report makes it sound like it wasn’t for someone like me because I had Mets in my bones but time will tell if this drug will be used on all new patients (as I was at the time).

NICE thought though.

I should be right in the zone for this, with Gleason 9 and locally advanced.

It will be a subject for discussion at my next meeting/telephone discussion with my oncologist.

If my next PSA is undetectable, as my last one was, there may be a difficult decision to make. Take the drug and risk the side effects, or do without and risk progression.

Hmmm.....

And I still can't pronounce Abiraterone.

Me too G9 - local to one sem vesicle.

According to the BBC report there are about 7000 of us possibly eligible. 

Not that many over the country but I imagine there will be a lot of enquiries by first thing Monday. They often add prednisolone to counteract side effects , which can have side effects itself as a steroid.

Another member of the Gleason 9 club here!

I am in that strange situation where I am on intermittent Hormone Therapy and due to come off it again in June for the second trial without treatment.

At least I now know it will be another "Tool" in the "Toolbox" should I need it - It's about time NICE started counting lives saved and not money saved.

Thanks Patrick100022a3b9 for your post.

Best wishes - Brian.

As another G9, locally-advanced person I have also taken an interest in this. My current view is I’m tolerating Zoladex well so far and wouldn’t really want to reduce QoL. But if Abiraterone is offered I would have to seriously consider it. I’m not due to see my consultant until July, will be very interested to hear what yours says Steve.

I'm also G9 locally advanced, I've had Abiraterone funded privately for 2 years which I've just finished on top of Prostap. While it's great from a PSA reduction perspective, the impact on QoL is significant. Now I've been off it for 2 months (still on HT , Orgovyx) I feel like I got my life back. 

I'm happy I've had it, as my approach was I'll suffer anything short-term to get into remission, but I wouldn't want to live long-term on it. QoL while on Orgovyx alone is good enough that I can see myself being on it long-term if needed.

G

What’s the reason you are stating your opinion on Zoladex, I don’t understand the connection you’re making to aberiterone?

There's also this AI aided test to suggest who would best benefit from abiraterone - not clear if it is actually in use routinely .

"This new research used an AI tool, developed by Artera Inc., to study tumour samples from more than 1,000 men who took part in STAMPEDE, picking out features that are invisible to the human eye.

Based on this, the test assigned men to one of two groups, which researchers compared to the men’s outcomes on the trial.

For one group of men, abiraterone cut the risk of death after five years from 17 per cent to 9 per cent, suggesting that such men would benefit greatly from taking the treatment.

For the others, their risk fell from 7 per cent to 4 per cent – a decline that wasn’t big enough that the researchers could say with confidence that it was due to abiraterone.

Instead, the researchers say these men would benefit more from remaining on radiotherapy and other hormone therapy – so avoiding the side effects that come from abiraterone."

prostatecanceruk.org/.../abiraterone-ai-test

My experience of aberiterone is that it didn’t help me for long. My PSA went skywards after a year so I would guard against thinking this drug is a wonder-drug, it’s definitely not in my experience.