Johnson & Johnson Prostate Cancer Drug So Effective Trial Stopped
A new study shows that Johnson & Johnsonâs prostate cancer pill Zytiga dramatically slows the progression of the disease in men who are not yet sick enough to start chemotherapy. Zytiga is already approved for use in patients after chemotherapy including the drug Taxotere has been given. J&J had announced that the study was positive in April after an independent committee said it was no longer ethical to give some patients placebo. J&J is releasing full results today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. In the 1,088-patient clinical trial, patients who received a combination of Zytiga and the steroid prednisone were 57% less likely to see their cancer advance based on a measure called radiographic progression free survival (rPFS), a more exacting version of the progression free survival (time without the tumor growing) measure used in earlier prostate cancer studies.