Selection of Therapeutic Targets for Prostate Cancer by using the Dynamic Modeling technology of Helios BioSciences: APO-KDYN.

Context:

Currently, prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men. The risk of developing prostate cancer increases with age and 30 men in 100 aged 50 years or more will develop prostate cancer. Approximately 3 in 10 men with prostate cancer will die from this illness and its complications. Generally speaking, chemotherapy is ineffective against prostate cancer and at present, treatments such as radiotherapy or total prostatectomy are used. The majority of prostate cancers are cancers of clinically hormone-sensitive secretory cells which are biologically androgen dependant. 95% are adenocarcinomas of which 50% are well defined glandular epitheliomas. One of the most frequently used therapeutic strategies for advanced cancers (1/3 of patients show metastases at diagnosis) consists of depriving cancer cells of androgens which has an atrophic effect on the cells, making them to evolve towards cell death notably by apoptosis. Unfortunately, a small number of cells escape treatment and can form more serious forms of the cancer long term. Prostate cancers with metastases generally respond to anti-androgen treatments only for 12 to 16 months, a duration which has notably not been improved for over than 15 years. Cancer cells which escape hormonal treatment are even more difficult to treat and average survival is of only 9-12 months. At this stage, chemotherapy is disappointing and badly tolerated. By way of example, in the recent evaluation of a bi-chemotherapy, the toxicity of the treatment caused it to be stopped prematurely in 49% of the patients and in spite of the aggressiveness of the protocol, average survival was only 44 weeks (11 months).

APO-KDYN Program:

Objectives

Taking these needs into account, the APO-KDYN project proposes a new therapeutic strategy for prostate cancer based on the acceleration of cancerous cell death during androgen deprivation in order to accelerate the reduction of the tumour mass and to reduce the appearance of cells resistant to androgen deprivation.

The major APO-KDYN objectives are :

1. the creation of a mathematical dynamic model of prostatic cancerous cell death by Helios novel modeling technology
2. the selection and the validation of new therapeutic targets to cure the prostate cancer.