“A Precision Drug for Prostate Cancer May Slow the Disease's Spread.”

Olivia Conniff

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event 5

October 17, 2019

Bates, Sofie. “A Precision Drug for Prostate Cancer May Slow the Disease's Spread.” Science News, 15 Oct. 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/prostate-cancer-drug-olaparib-slow-spread.

For my fifth current event, I chose to read the article, “A Precision Drug for Prostate Cancer May Slow the Disease’s Spread”, written by Sofie Bates. Bates described a drug, known as olaparib, that has been used to treat ovarian and breast cancer, that has now been proven to be able to drastically slow the progression of prostate cancer in men. Evidence was cited from a study that was done to test the effectiveness of olaparib on men with genetic mutations in the genes most commonly associated with ovarian and breast cancer, BRCA1, BRCA2 and ATM. In men that were given olaparib, the prostate cancer spread much more slowly than those who took the standard medication, and after a year, 22% of the men who took olaparib, their cancer had stopped spreading all together, compared to the 13.5% of men on the standard medication. The tumors of the men on olaparib were shrinking, and is buying patients much more time, although it is not yet understood how it will affect overall survival. Olaparib is a PARP inhibitor, meaning it blocks the PARP enzyme, which repairs areas of broken DNA just to the level that allows cancer cells to thrive.

According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, making it the second most common type of cancer in American men, second only to skin cancer. While it is treatable by surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, these methods do not always succeed. About 30,000 men in the U.S. die each year from prostate cancer. The great thing about olaparib, is that it can be tailored to the specific patient’s genetic makeup, making it more likely to succeed in treating the disease. “My hope is that we’re going to be doing more and more research to better personalize care for the individual patient,” says Maha Hussain, an oncologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago who presented the findings at the oncology meeting. Hopefully this treatment will change the future of prostate cancer and the way it is treated.

Overall, this article was extremely well-written and informative. Bates described the study done on olaparib in clear terms, making it easy to understand. She also explained the complexity of the different genes, BRCA1, BRCA2 and ATM, and how they play into the medication in terms that anyone could understand, so not to confuse the reader. She went to explain the results of the study in clear statistics and furthermore, gave background information on the disease itself. This made the article very compelling to read. Bates could have strengthened the article by including more insight and quotes from experts on the subject, but overall it was excellent, easy to read, and extremely insightful about the future of prostate cancer treatment.