Radium-223 in a Community Setting for Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the toxicity, palliative benefit, and survival benefit of Radium-223 (Ra-223) in a community setting.Introduction: The ALSYMCA (Alpharadin in Symptomatic Prostate Cancer) trial demonstrated improved survival for men with painful bone metastasis from castration resistant prostate cancer who were treated with Ra-223. The median survival was 14.9 months for the Ra-223 patients compared to 11.3 months for patients treated with a placebo.Methods: We identified through the nuclear medicine records 11 patients who started Ra-223 between March 15, 2013 and December 10, 2015. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the published results of the ALSYMPCA patients with those from our institution.Results: The Hodges-Lehman estimate of the median survival of our patients from the date of the first Ra-223 infusion was 7.8 months. The 95% confidence interval (CI) was (2.8, 14.7; p=0.0122) indicating our patients had a significantly shorter survival than the Ra-223 ALSYMPCA patients.Our patients did not have a statistically significant worse rate of anemia, neutropenia, or thrombocytopenia. We used 3 measures of treatment effectiveness: 1) reduction in the pain scores, 2) reduction in the serum PSA, and 3) reduction in the alkaline phosphatase from baseline, but the reductions were not statistically significant.Conclusions: This small study is not meant to challenge the results of the ALSYMPCA international trial. It is intended only as a caution that prior lines of therapy, especially with newer agents such as abiraterone and enzalutamide, may attenuate the benefit from this treatment, particularly in elderly patients.Radium-223 in a Community Setting for Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer