MEN with late-stage prostate cancer may now be able to live years longer than expected thanks to a newly-approved drug.
NUBEQA® (darolutamide) will be subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme from December 1.
It is will be used in a triple therapy approach to fight one of the deadliest cancers.
An expert from the Calvary Mater Newcastle, Dr Girish Mallesara, said the drug was previously approved for treatment of cancer that was shown to have spread through blood tests but was not yet visible in areas outside the prostate on scans.
It will now be available is cases where the cancer is metastatic.
"Going back about 15 years, only hormonal injections were available for this stage of cancer, and around 2013 we started adding chemotherapy," Dr Mallesara said.
"This is the first time where we can add this type of drug. It is three treatments together now, as opposed to two before."
Darolutamide can not cure prostate cancer, which is generally terminal once metastatic.
But in global clinical trials, about 10 per cent of patients who received the three-prong approach were living, compared to no one from those who only had chemotherapy and hormonal injections.
Dr Mallesara said the approval was particularly important for Newcastle, where about six per cent of cases have cancer that have already been spread beyond the prostate at the time of diagnosis. The national average is just four per cent.
"One of the causes for patients being diagnosed quite late is that there's not enough engagement with men from their primary physicians or GPs," Dr Mallesara said.
"We need to encourage men to interact with their GPs more and perhaps have discussions about prostate cancer screening."
