Most prostate cancers at first are driven by male hormones -- androgens -- but they then become androgen independent, often spreading to other areas of the body. At this stage, treatment is difficult, but a new “smart drug” holds promise. Researchers have developed an antibody, J591, that homes in on a specific molecule on prostate cancer cells. With a radioactive isotope attached, the antibody produced an anti-tumor effect in an early-stage (phase I) trial involving men with androgen-independent prostate cancer. Senior investigator Dr. Neil H. Bander told Reuters Health that the agent “can target prostate cancer metastases wherever they are in the body.” Accumulation of the isotope-tagged antibody at tumor sites, he added, “led to the delivery of therapeutic radiation only to tumor sites but not to normal tissues. As a result, patients tolerated the treatment very well.” Bander, of Cornell University Medical Center, and colleagues tested increasing doses of J591 in 29 patients with androgen-independent prostate cancer.
