Docetaxel Treatment for Metastatic Hormone-sensitive Prostate Cancer in Daily Practice

BACKGROUND: Currently, metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) patients are often treated with docetaxel chemotherapy at the initiation of hormonal therapy. This treatment is based on the results of two pivotal trials. However, trial populations are not a representative of real-world patient populations. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to analyze whether survival rates in our daily practice cohort is comparable with those in clinical trials and to characterize the tolerability of docetaxel chemotherapy in daily practice. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In this retrospective cohort analysis, we studied 159 mHSPC patients treated with early docetaxel from April 2014 up to June 2020 in a top clinical hospital in The Netherlands. Patients were selected using hospital pharmacy records. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: We compared the results of our cohort with the results of the cohorts of the two pivotal trials. We aimed to analyze the survival rates in our cohort and characterize the tolerability of docetaxel chemotherapy in daily practice. RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS: Despite the relatively high number of comorbidities in our daily practice cohort, overall survival of our cohort showed great similarity with that of the two pivotal trials: 60.2 mo compared with 57.6 and 59.1 mo. Furthermore, early docetaxel was well tolerated in daily practice. Nearly 90% of the patients completed the full six cycles, and polyneuropathy led to relatively few dose reductions (6.9%). CONCLUSIONS: Early docetaxel is well tolerated in daily practice. Our daily practice cohort showed great similarity in overall survival to the clinical trials. Our results might be of interest in the developing landscape of mHSPC treatment. PATIENT SUMMARY: We studied docetaxel chemotherapy for metastatic prostate cancer in daily practice. These patients have the same survival as selected patients participating in clinical trials. Docetaxel was well tolerated in daily practice.