The dire cancer incidence and mortality statistics for Black patients compared with White patients are well known. Collectively, Black individuals have the highest mortality rate and shortest survival of any racial or ethnic group in the United States for most cancers. Black men also have the highest cancer incidence rate,¹ including higher rates of prostate cancer, and they are nearly 2.5 times more likely to die of the disease than non-Hispanic White men.² The question is why these racial disparities persist.

In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Anthony V. D’Amico, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of docetaxel to radiotherapy and androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) did not improve overall survival in nonmetastatic, unfavorable-risk prostate cancer. However, patients receiving docetaxel had a reduced incidence of radiotherapy-induced cancers, and a potential survival benefit was observed among those with a prostate-specific antigen level < 4 ng/mL, reflecting a reduction in prostate cancer–specific mortality.

Lutetium-177–PSMA-617 (LuPSMA)—an investigational radiolabeled small molecule—significantly improved radiographic progression-free survival and overall survival when added to the standard of care compared with the standard of care alone for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who had experienced disease progression on other lines of treatment. These findings were from the phase III VISION trial presented during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting.

In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sperger et al found that use of a novel liquid biopsy technology resulted in identification of a prognostic transcriptional profile in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from patients with metastatic prostate cancer. The profile was prognostic independent of androgen receptor splice variant status, an established prognostic marker.

Black men most likely to benefit from advanced prostate cancer therapies are 11% less likely to receive them than non-Black men. This happens despite apparent equal opportunities in obtaining health-care services, according to a new study focused on American veterans published by Rude et al in the journal Cancer.