Radium chloride [223Ra] for patients with prostate cancer and skeletal metastases. Clinical recommendations

Radiopharmaceuticals previously used to treat patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer and skeletal metastases were positioned as means to suppress pain, reduce analgesics consumption and improve the quality of life. They were usually administered once in case of progressive pain syndrome. Radium chloride [223Ra] is registered to treat patients with castrate-resistant prostate cancer and multiple skeletal metastases, but without visceral metastases. The ALSYMPCA study showed a significantly increased overall survival in the group receiving radium chloride [223Ra] compared with placebo. This became the basis to register the drug, as well as to include the treatment into the clinical guidelines of professional associations in various countries of the world. The secondary endpoints of the ALSYMPCA study were evaluation of the quality of life, the influence of radium chloride [223Ra] on pain severity, the dynamics of tumor and biochemical markers, and the time to the first skeleton associated complication. Thus, the main goal of radium chloride [223Ra] therapy is to prolong patients’ life, and it can be prescribed to those with or without pain syndrome. The data served as the basis for widespread use of radium chloride [223Ra] to treat patients with castrate-resistant prostate cancer and skeletal metastase