Clinical Trials for Prostate Cancer

Clinical Trials Info Sheet
Clinical trials info sheet - What you need to know about clinical trials.

A clinical trial is a research study designed to evaluate a promising new medical treatment. It may involve a new way of preventing, diagnosing and/or treating cancer. Half or more of all Roswell Park patients are eligible to enroll in a clinical trial. Clinical trials may focus on:

  • New ways of preventing cancer with drugs, diet and/or exercise
  • New ways to better diagnose cancer
  • New drugs to treat cancer
  • New ways to use existing treatments, such as surgery or radiation therapy
  • New ways to improve quality of life for patients with cancer

When the information from a clinical trial shows that the treatment being studied is more effective than standard treatments, the new treatment eventually becomes the new standard of care.

Every treatment that is now FDA-approved began as a treatment being studied in a clinical trial. Patients who enrolled in that clinical trial had access to that treatment before it was FDA-approved and widely available.

Clinical trials for prostate cancer at Roswell Park

The robust clinical research program at Roswell Park provides patients with more options to maximize survival, reduce side effects and improve quality of life. Some of our current clinical trials involve:

  • New compounds, agents and drug combinations to overcome treatment resistance in CRPC
  • A new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy
  • Reducing or increasing the intensity of hormone therapy and radiation therapy depending on the patient’s gene risk score.
  • Correlation between brain and pelvic floor muscle activity in effort to preserve urinary continence after surgery
  • How nutrition and exercise interventions may reduce treatment-related obesity
  • Use of a new drug combination before surgery to reduce cancer recurrence

As many as 30% of Roswell Park patients are eligible to enroll in a clinical trial of a promising new treatment. All of today’s standard treatments were assessed in clinical trials before they received FDA approval.

Through clinical trials, prostate cancer patients at Roswell Park were among the first to benefit from the immunotherapy drug pembolizumab (Keytruda), the PARP inhibitor rucaparib (Rubraca) and the triple therapy combination of (LHRH + AR targeted therapy + Docetaxel) before they were FDA approved.

Prostate cancer research and future treatments

As a cancer research powerhouse, Roswell Park places a strong emphasis on translational research — speeding new discoveries from the laboratory to the clinic to help patients as quickly as possible. Among our recent discoveries:

Available clinical trials

New clinical trials become available everyday. Talk to your oncologist about which ones might be right for your cancer. Learn more about our current clinical trials involving prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer clinical trials