Second-line chemotherapy for advanced hormone-refractory prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer occurring among men in the United States. In spite of the disease's favorable prognosis, approximately 30,000 U.S. men develop incurable metastatic disease each year, making prostate cancer the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among men in the United States. Although hormone-based therapies generally result in rapid responses, virtually all patients ultimately develop androgen-independent progressive disease. It is among these men with hormone-refractory prostate cancer (HRPC) that the role of chemotherapy continues to be investigated. To date, three drugs (estramustine, mitoxantrone, and docetaxel) have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for first-line chemotherapy in HRPC, with other agents and combinations now under evaluation in ongoing clinical trials. Patients whose tumors progress through first-line chemotherapy have limited treatment options available to them and less than half of all men with HRPC will receive any second-line chemotherapy. To date, only one phase III randomized clinical trial has been completed in this setting and no therapies are FDA-approved. We review here the entirety of phase II and III data evaluating chemotherapy agents in second-line HRPC.