Prostate cancer patients with bone metastases benefit from repeated administration of radionuclide therapy, according to research published in the November issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine (Vol. 52:11, pp. 1721-1726).
In a retrospective study involving 60 patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer, researchers found that post-treatment survival increased with the number of administrations of a novel rhenium-188 (Re-188) hydroxyethylidine diphosphonate (HEDP) radiopharmaceutical. Patients receiving one therapy added 4.5 months of life, those receiving two therapies added 10 months, and those receiving three or more therapies improved their survival by 15.7 months, according to lead author Dr. Hans-Jürgen Biersack of the University of Bonn and colleagues.
This radionuclide therapy also reduced pain, although no significant difference was found among the patients. The Re-188 HEDP treatments were developed for the study at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN.
