New advanced prostate cancer injection bears many restrictions

Clinicians will soon be able to offer another treatment option to men with prostate cancer who have not responded to hormonal therapy. The FDA recently approved abarelix (Plenaxis, Praecis Pharmaceuticals) for the palliative treatment of men with advanced symptomatic prostate cancer in whom luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist therapy is inappropriate and who refuse surgical castration, and have risk of neurological compromise due to metastases; ureteral or bladder outlet obstruction due to local encroachment or metastatic disease; and/or severe bone pain from skeletal metastases persisting on narcotic analgesia. The drug will be available sometime during the first quarter of 2004.