Are Abiraterone and Enzalutamide ‘Chemotherapy’?

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User

Posted 16 May 2019 at 05:16

I was with a friend today at his urology consultation and I mentioned Enzalutamide and Abiraterone to the doctor as androgen deprivation drugs.

She told me they were not that but were ‘chemotherapy’. Wikipedia seems to disagree.

She asked him loads of questions about his previous urological medical treatment that he couldn’t remember, when all those answers were on the computer in front of her, if she could only be bothered to look.

It was only after interrogation by me that we discovered my mate has had pubic area bone metastases since 2014, yet it is only now, at my prompting, that he is being referred to oncology instead of urology.

As he hobbled out back to the car, he asked: ‘Is that why I have pains in my hip?’

’Yes, but it might also be down to the fact that you’re 87!’

Edited by member 16 May 2019 at 10:37 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 16 May 2019 at 21:28

Abi and enza are not classed as chemotherapy.

User

Posted 17 May 2019 at 00:06

The doctor is correct; Abi and Enza are both types of chemo. It's just that in the UK, lay people tend to have a very narrow view of what chemotherapy is - the word simply means some form of medication that kills cancer cells.

Neither drug is an androgen deprivation therapy which is why they are given in conjunction with HT and can extend life in castrate resistant PCa cases.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User

Posted 17 May 2019 at 00:55

Originally Posted by: Online Community Member

That's why I take data like that in with me in the form of a printout from an Excel spreadsheet.

Consultant talking to himself last time: "Now let's see when you started on Zoladex?"
Then he remembered it was me, and said, "You'll find it much faster there..." pointing to my sheet that I was already checking, "...than I'll find it on the computer."

Same with blood test results - I have all mine going back nearly 10 years on one sheet of paper. I have given it to different consultants a few times as it's much easier to read than they can on the computer (not to mention their computer doesn't have most of them). Funny thing is, when I get a periodic copy of my hospital records, I find they've scanned my copies of the blood test results into my records, but also I can see from the way the records are structured why they can't easily find things in them. (My GP records are better structured.)

User

Posted 17 May 2019 at 01:04

Ha! When Dad & I went to see Mr P, he had plotted all his PSA results on a graph to demonstrate the velocity. Mr P took a photo of the graph to add to the medical notes :-)

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User

Posted 17 May 2019 at 02:21

Prostate Cancer UK:

“Enzalutamide (Xtandi®) is a type of hormone therapy for men with prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body (advanced prostate cancer) and has stopped responding to other types of hormone therapy.

It works by blocking the effect of the hormone testosterone on prostate cancer cells. Without testosterone, the prostate cancer cells can’t grow, even if they have spread to other parts of the body.”

Wikipedia:

”Abiraterone acetate, sold under the brand name Zytiga among others, is an antiandrogen medication which is used in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Edited by member 17 May 2019 at 02:27 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 17 May 2019 at 11:35

I was going to ask the same question. Last week my dad went for appointment with his oncologist who suggested introducing a new hormone therapy ZytigA. He was to start the treatment yesterday and we were back in hospital and he had bloods etc . He didn’t get started as he has some fluid on his lungs but we saw a registrar from the team who went over the side effects etc and then sent him for chest X-ray. When we came back the same doc asked him had he any more questions about the chemo drug

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