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

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