Is it useful to combine taxanes with targeted agents in mCRPC patients—have we hit the target in this phase II study with docetaxel and curcumin allowing going for a phase III study?

Ten percent to 20% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer will eventually develop castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Standard treatment for symptomatic metastatic CRPC (mCRPC) has consisted of chemotherapy-based regimens in combination with steroids for the past two decades. Docetaxel with daily prednisone is the recommended first-line therapy for symptomatic mCRPC (1). Docetaxel is the first treatment to have shown an increase in median overall survival (OS) for mCRPC. With a gain of 2–3 months OS (2-4), three key phase II randomized or III studies demonstrated the clinical benefit of docetaxel over the previous standard treatment, the mitoxantrone, an anthracedione (1) (Table 1).