Sanofi-Aventis touted a 28 percent reduced risk of death and a substantial increase in median overall survival rates among patients taking its prostate cancer drug cabazitaxel in combination with prednisone in a late-stage trial. The drug group achieved an improved median overall survival rate of 15.1 months compared to the 12.7 months registered by patients taking mitoxantrone with prednisone.
Researchers also tracked a slate of adverse events, not unusual for advanced prostate cancer patients, noting a 4.9 percent death rate in the cabazitaxel arm--primarily due to neutropenia--compared to 1.9 percent in the mitoxantrone arm. A full set of the data for patients with metastatic, treatment-resistant prostate cancer will be presented at ASCO on June 6.
"The development of cabazitaxel is one of many investigational compounds we hope to present to the cancer community in the months and years to come," said Sanofi's Debasish Roychowdhury, oncology senior vice president.
- check out Sanofi's release
- here's the story from Reuters