Prednisone

[pjoshea13]

In yesterday's thread on "Jevtana and Prednisone", no mention was made of the potential effect of prednisone on the cancer. In fact, Eric wrote that: "prednisone in itself does nothing to stop or slow the cancer".

In fact, there may be add-on value in the combined treatments where prednisone is included for other reasons.

From the bad old days:

1] 1998 - Effect of predisone on PSA in CRPC. "10 mg of prednisone orally two times a day."

"The mean and median PSA decline after initiating prednisone was 33%"

"Ten patients (34%) had a PSA decline of more than 50% and 4 patients (14%) had PSA declines of more than 75%."

2] 2001 - Flutamide versus prednisone in CRPC.

"In symptomatic HRPC, treatment with prednisone or flutamide leads to similar rates of {time to progression} and overall survival and no difference in subjective or biochemical response. The QL results favor the use of low-cost prednisone in patients with HRPC."

-Patrick

[1] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/969...

[2] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/111...

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When I took my chemo trial twelve years ago part of the regime was 30 mg of Prednisone each day for six months (10 mg and 20 mg twice a day). I asked Dr. Amato why. His response was simple, "My research show that Prednisone has prostate cancer killing properties."

Keep Kicking the Bastard,

Gourd_Dancer

[erjlg3]

So sorry.......I can't keep up. Is prednisone good or bad when you have cancer?

[pjoshea13 in reply to erjlg3]

I doubt that many men are happy about taking a drug that is an immunosuppresant, but there appears to be an independent benefit when used against PCa.

By independent, I mean that prednisone alone might have some benefit.

I have written many posts about the importance of controlling inflammation. PCa is certainly an inflammatory disease. Eliminate the inflammation & the PSA doubling time might increase. Prednisone is used to treat certain inflammatory diseases, although one doesn't need prednisone to address inflammation.

It does have a downside. Blood glucose goes up. I think it very important with PCa to restore insulin sensitivity, & this would be difficult to do while taking prednisone. There are other side effects too.

While using a treatment drug where prednisone is part of the treatment, one can take solace in the fact that prednisone is adding value (IMO).

-Patrick