Survival outcomes and prognostic factors for first-line abiraterone acetate or enzalutamide in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

PURPOSE: To investigate the survival outcomes of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients receiving first-line novel androgen receptor axis-targeted therapies (ARATs) and prognostic factors for patient survival.

METHODS: This retrospective study obtained data from 202 patients who started abiraterone acetate or enzalutamide as first-line therapy for mCRPC between 2016 and 2021 from a single academic center. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS) defined as the interval from the start of ARAT to death, loss to follow-up, or the end of the study period. The secondary endpoints were PSA decline, PSA nadir, and time to nadir (TTN) after ARATs. Kaplan-Meier survival analyses were applied for depicting OS. Cox proportional hazards model with inversed probability of treatment weighing-adjustment was used to validate the effect of patient, disease, and treatment response factors on OS.

RESULTS: Among 202 patients, 164 patients were treated with first-line ARATs alone and 38 patients received second-line chemotherapy. The median OS was not reached in patients with first-line ARATs alone and was 38.8 months in those with subsequent chemotherapy after failure from ARATs. OS was not different between the use of abiraterone and enzalutamide, though enzalutamide showed a higher rate of PSA decline ≧ 90% (56% versus 40%, p = 0.021) and longer TTN (5.5 versus 4.7 months, p = 0.019). Multivariable analysis showed that PSA nadir > 2 ng/mL [hazard ratio (HR) 7.04, p < 0.001] and TTN<7 months (HR 2.18, p = 0.012) were independently associated with shorter OS. Patients with both of these poor prognostic factors had worse OS compared to those who had 0-1 factors (HR 9.21, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Patients with mCRPC who received first-line ARATs had better survival if they had a PSA nadir[Formula: see text]2 ng/mL or a TTN[Formula: see text]7 months. Further study is needed to determine if an early switch in therapy for those in whom neither is achieved may impact OS.