Emerging therapies in castration resistant prostate cancer

Introduction: Prostate cancer continues to be the second leading cause of cancer related mortality in men within the United States. Despite a consistent decline in prostate cancer mortality over the past two decades, the prognosis for men with metastatic prostate cancer remains poor with no curative therapies. In this article, we review the recently approved and emerging therapeutics for patients with castrate resistant prostate cancer. Materials and methods: An advanced search was conducted on the clinicaltrials.gov database, using search terms "metastatic prostate cancer", and limiting results to phase II-IV clinical trials. Clinically relevant emerging therapeutics were selected and a Medline search for supporting documents was performed. An emphasis was placed on newly approved and promising new therapeutics. Results: A total of four Food and Drug Administration approved medications and eight investigational agents were chosen for review. The background and role of these therapeutics in the treatment of prostate cancer treatment is discussed. Conclusions: The past few years have yielded a near exponential increase in treatments for metastatic prostate cancer, many of which have a unique mechanism of action. The estimated median survival for patients with metastatic prostate cancer remains dynamic as we begin to integrate these therapeutics into clinical practice and determine the optimal sequence and timing of treatment.