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Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Prostate cancer patients helped by DN-101
By Zosimo T. Literatus, R.M.T.
Sometimes, the prospect of losing our life makes every minute of it more precious and more appreciated than ever before. Amidst a serious threat to life, any promise to extend it would be priceless.
Promises were what an experimental vitamin, known as D pill or DN-101, had to give in the beginning.
And certainly, a promise it was able to keep so far, that is, about half of the time. For most patients with advanced prostate cancer, it is the only hope available after surgery, radiation, and hormone treatments have failed.
In a recent study involving 250 men with advanced prostate cancer and under chemotherapy, DN-101 (a pill containing calcitrol at very high concentrations) showed that 125 patients who had been given the pill lived seven months longer than those who received chemotherapy alone.
Calcitrol is biologically the most active form of vitamin D.
In another study at the Oregon Health and Science University (Ohsu), the combination of weekly high doses of commercially available calcitriol (vitamin D) and docetaxel, an anti-cancer drug, showed declines in prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels and tumor shrinkage.
Of the 37 hormone-dependent patients who received the combination treatment, 81 percent had a confirmed PSA reduction of 50 percent or more compared to 36-45 percent of patients in comparable previous studies with docetaxel alone. The PSA responses in this study were dependable (it was 11.4 months in duration), compared to patients who received docetaxel alone in other studies (five months duration).
DN-101 “changes the biology of the cancer cell,” says oncologist Tomasz Beer, M.D., one of the inventors of the new drug, “and makes it more prone to dying when the chemotherapy is around.” Dr. Beer works at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, USA.
To-date, DN-101 offers the longest survival benefit for patients with advanced prostate cancer. This is good news. Not only because DN-101 somehow honored its promise but also because it might in the future be able to promise a longer life to the otherwise shortened lives of advanced prostate cancer patients. What a happier, meaningful, and longer life it could be! (For suggestions, comments and topic requests, write to ztliteratus6046@lycos.com.)
(August 24, 2005 issue)
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