Are hormonal agents better than chemo in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer?

OBJECTIVE In this study, we aim to determine which treatment is more appropriate in castration-resistant chemo-therapy-naive patients. Therefore, docetaxel and agents active in the androgen pathway (abiraterone and enzalutamide) were compared retrospectively in patients progressing on androgen deprivation therapy. METHODS The study was designed as a retrospective and multicenter study. Patients from five centers in Turkey were included in the study. The primary endpoint of the study was overall survival (OS) and the second-ary endpoint was progression-free survival. RESULTS Median OS of the docetaxel group was 18.66 months, it was 16.26 months in the hormonal treatment group. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups (p=0.311). Median progression-free survival of the chemotherapy group was 5.6 months, while it was 9 months in the hormonal therapy group. There was statistically significant difference between the groups (p=0.024). CONCLUSION There was statistical difference in progression-free survival in favor of hormonal therapies in our study. The difference did not reflect on OS and there was no difference between hormonal therapies and docetaxel. Heterogeneity in the selection of patients is considered to lead to this result; however, larger randomized controlled studies are needed to determine the most appropriate treatment in these patients.