Active clinical trials for "Prostatic Neoplasms"

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of irreversible electroporation (IRE) for unresectable Prostatic Neoplasms.

Prostate cancer is currently the leading newly diagnosed cancer in the industrialized world. Treatment of prostate cancer is highly dependent on the stage of the disease. Current methods for staging are known to be inaccurate. Prior studies from our department suggest that PET/CT is useful in staging of bone metastases in patients with prostate cancer. The aim of this study is to test the usefulness of Choline PET/CT for the staging of bone metastases compared to current standard methods in patients with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Better initial staging will result in better treatment of the individual patient. If we are able to develop a more accurate method of staging patients with undetected metastases on current staging will be spared of the side-effects associated with current treatment - impotence, incontinence, radiation damage etc.

The purpose of this study is to carry out very detailed genetic testing on prostate cancer cells. The reason to do this is because researchers do not fully understand How prostate cancer develops Why some cancer cells spread and others do not Why some cancer cells respond to treatment and others do not Researchers and doctors know that 1 in 3 of the male population over the age of 50 has cancer cells in their prostate. However, most of these men will never know they have it and it will not affect their quality of life or their life expectancy. However, some cancers can be aggressive. These are more likely to spread outside of the prostate and cause problems. Doctors do not have an accurate way to tell the difference between aggressive cancer and those which will not cause any problems. Even within one prostate some tumours are aggressive and others do not cause a problem during the lifetime of a patient. In fact, even within one tumour, different cells may behave differently. In other words, one part of the tumour may be aggressive and spread, whilst another part of the same tumour does not. This project will try to find out more about what makes different tumours and different parts of the same tumour aggressive or harmless. It is important to find out what makes some cancer cells spread and others stay where they are. For the investigators to do this they need to collect fresh samples of cancer tissue from the prostate and from different areas of a tumour within the prostate. This is because biopsies used to diagnose or exclude cancer by the hospital laboratory are not good enough to give investigators detailed genetic information. These biopsies have been put into a chemical called formalin which reduces the quality of the genetic information. Investigators are therefore asking patients who are undergoing prostate biopsies as part of their normal care to allow them to take additional biopsies for the purpose of this study. This may be the first time patients are having biopsies. Or, patients may be having biopsies after treatment that has been given for the cancer and the doctors are concerned the treatment is not working.

The purpose of this study is to see if MR-guided laser ablation can effectively treat prostate tumor recurrences.

This study is being done to evaluate the use of MRI during radiation treatment planning to identify areas of tumor within the prostate to aid in future treatment planning and targeting of prostate cancer. This study will be conducted at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. The study is projected to run for 18 months. Subjects will be male 18 or older with a prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment plansat the Department of Radiation Oncology.

Although there have been advances in the treatment of patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), all patients eventually develop resistance to available therapy. Docetaxel is the accepted first-line agent followed by cabazitaxel in the post-docetaxel phase. In this study the investigators propose to evaluate BKM120, a PI3K inhibitor, with cabazitaxel in the treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer.

This study will evaluate if adding the investigational drug Dovitinib to standard androgen ablation therapy (ADT) is beneficial in prolonging the time to disease progression in patients with metastatic prostate cancer who are receiving ADT for the first time. Dovitinib belongs to the class of drugs known as tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitors. Tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitors have been shown to have anti-tumor effects and inhibit new blood vessel formation. New blood vessel development is necessary for the growth and spread of certain tumors, such as prostate cancer. It is thought that by inhibiting new blood vessel formation, any existing or new tumors may be unable to grow. Dovitinib targets existing cancer cells and also works to stop the formation of new blood vessels. Patients will be randomly assigned to received ADT alone or ADT plus Dovitinib. ADT will be administered per standard of care. Dovitinib will be taken by mouth once daily for 5 continuous days, followed by 2 days with no Dovitinib. This schedule will repeat and continue until disease progression or removal from treatment for other reasons. Participants may start ADT prior to entering the study; however, treatment with Dovitinib must begin no later than 120 days from the start of ADT. Participants will be asked to donate blood samples for research purposes; this is an optional part of the study. Research on blood samples will study circulating tumor cells and certain biomarkers (proteins on cells) to increase the understanding of prostate cancer and explore if certain biomarkers can help predict how tumors will react to treatment. Samples of existing tumor tissue will also be examined for research purposes.

This research is being done to test the safety and anti-cancer activity of the combination of an investigational drug called orteronel, with a drug called itraconazole in the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer. Orteronel is an investigational drug known as a 17,20-lyase enzyme inhibitor, meaning that it blocks the formation of male sex hormones. Itraconazole is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of various fungal infections such as fingernail/toenail infections and other more serious fungal infections. While it has shown evidence of activity against prostate cancer in prior studies, it is not approved for use in cancer. The FDA is allowing the use of orteronel and itraconazole in this research study. In addition to its antifungal properties, itraconazole was discovered to function to block angiogenesis (blood vessel formation to tumors) to block a cellular pathway thought to be important in prostate cancer known as the Hedgehog pathway. Investigators hypothesize that blocking male sex hormone production with orteronel will increase reliance on the Hedgehog pathway in prostate cancer cells which can then be blocked with itraconazole and that the combination of these two drugs will be more effective than either alone.

The objective of this randomized phase II open label trial is to determine the anti-tumor activity of TAK-700 (Orteronel) as compared to bicalutamide in terms of clinical progression-free survival in prostate cancer patients who failed 1st line treatment with LHRH (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone) agonists or surgical castration.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether MRI guided prostate biopsy achieves higher prostate cancer detection rates compared with transrectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy in patients with increased PSA values > 4.0 ng/ml.