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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Oncol.

Sec. Genitourinary Oncology

Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1638405

Comparing the safety and efficacy of systemic therapies for high-risk biochemically recurrent hormone-sensitive prostate cancer: A network meta-analysis

Provisionally accepted
Armen  AprikianArmen Aprikian1Andrew  ChilelliAndrew Chilelli2Thomas  McLeanThomas McLean2Anchen  NasrAnchen Nasr3Arijit  GanguliArijit Ganguli3Alexis  SerikoffAlexis Serikoff2Franco  GuzmanFranco Guzman3Ifigeneia  BaroumaIfigeneia Barouma4Maria  ZacharioudakiMaria Zacharioudaki5Stephen  FreedlandStephen Freedland6*
  • 1McGill University, Montreal, Canada
  • 2Astellas Pharma Europe, Addlestone, United Kingdom
  • 3Astellas Pharma, Northbrook, IL, United States
  • 4IQVIA Ltd, Athens, Greece
  • 5IQVIA Commercial GmbH & Co OHG, Munich, Germany
  • 6Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction: Enzalutamide is the only androgen receptor pathway inhibitor approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency to treat high-risk biochemically recurrent non-metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. The objective of this network meta-analysis was to provide indirect evidence of the efficacy of enzalutamide relative to other therapies for biochemical recurrence after definitive therapy.We conducted a systematic literature review to identify trials that assessed the efficacy and safety of current and emerging interventions. Outcomes of interest were metastasis-free survival, overall survival, time to prostate-specific antigen progression, time to castration resistance, proportion of patients with prostate-specific antigen <0.2 ng/ml at 36 (±4) weeks of treatment, and grade ≥3 treatmentrelated adverse events. Fixed-and random-effects models were run under the Bayesian framework.Results: Enzalutamide with androgen-deprivation therapy (i.e., combination therapy) demonstrated superiority over most comparators for overall survival (except androgen-deprivation therapy + docetaxel, which was similar), and over all comparators for metastasis-free survival, time to prostate-specific antigen progression, and time to castration resistance. Enzalutamide combination therapy demonstrated superiority over enzalutamide monotherapy for all efficacy outcomes, and similar performance for safety. Enzalutamide monotherapy demonstrated superiority over androgen-deprivation therapy alone and androgen-deprivation therapy + docetaxel for metastasis-free survival and time to prostate-specific antigen progression. Treatmentrelated adverse events were least common for androgen-deprivation therapy alone.Discussion: This network meta-analysis provides evidence that enzalutamide combination therapy provides considerable oncological benefit in high-risk biochemically recurrent non-metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, albeit with a higher risk of treatment-related adverse events.

Keywords: Biochemical Recurrence, enzalutamide, Hormone-sensitive, Network meta-analysis, Prostatic Neoplasms, Systematic review

Received: 30 May 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Aprikian, Chilelli, McLean, Nasr, Ganguli, Serikoff, Guzman, Barouma, Zacharioudaki and Freedland. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Stephen Freedland, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States

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