The past few years have brought increasing advances in the therapeutic management of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with the approval of several agents, including vaccine therapy with sipuleucel-T, second-line chemotherapy with cabazitaxel, the bone-targeted pharmaceutical denosumab, and the novel antiandrogen therapy abiraterone acetate. There are ongoing developments with other agents in the pipeline such as MDV3100 and alpharadin that have shown promising results. This review describes the clinical trials that brought about the drug approvals of various agents and offers some insights regarding a rational approach to optimal treatment sequencing for these drugs since national guidelines are currently lacking.
Keywords: Androgen deprivation therapy; chemotherapy; metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer; vaccine therapy.