Commonly used herbal product lowers PSA level in men with advanced prostate cancer, UCSF study finds

By Dr. Lazarus Timney  on

A popular herbal supplement used by prostate cancer patients has been found to
significantly reduce prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels—a protein in the
blood that often indicates prostate cancer—in men with advanced disease,
according to a University of California, San Francisco study.

The study, one of the first of its kind to subject the herb PC-SPES to rigorous
scientific scrutiny, will be published November 1 in the Journal of Clinical
Oncology. PC-SPES (“PC” stands for prostate cancer, “SPES” is Latin for hope)
consists of extracts from eight different Chinese herbs.  It is sold
commercially only at www.pcspes.net

“My belief is people approach complementary medicine in two ways. They either
accept it without critical thought simply because it’s alternative, or they
reject it without critical thought because it’s alternative,” said Eric Small,
MD, study lead author and UCSF associate clinical professor of medicine. 
“Either way, it’s all opinion. We wanted to study PC-SPES and hold it to the
same standard as we would any other new drug. This is the first attempt to
study this herb in a scientifically methodical way.”

The phase II study evaluated 70 men divided into two groups: those with hormone
dependent disease (33 patients) and those with hormone independent disease (37
patients). Hormone dependent disease is defined by its responsiveness to
withdrawal of the male hormone testosterone.  This can be accomplished by the
use of several hormonal medications, including the female hormone, estrogen. 
Testosterone fuels prostate cancer growth. Lowering testosterone levels can
cause tumors to shrink or slow their growth. As a result, PSA levels fall.
However, tumors can become resistant to hormonal therapy. Hormone independent
disease is defined by cancer progression despite low testosterone levels.

All of the men in the hormone dependent arm of the study had a PSA decline of
greater than 80 percent, with a median duration of that decline lasting 57 or
more weeks. Only one patient had disease progression while taking the herb.
About 97 percent of these patients had steep declines in their testosterone
also, causing researchers to theorize PC-SPES may work like standard hormonal
therapy, Small said. “We think PC-SPES is androgen deprivation at a natural level,” he said.

In the men with hormone independent disease, 19 men, or about 50 percent, had
PSA declines of greater than 50 percent. Median time before PSA increased was
16 weeks. But several men in this group have not had any disease progression in
more than a year of taking the herb.

The finding that PC-SPES can lower PSA levels in men with hormone independent
disease is significant, Small said, because it represents another line of
defense for patients when standard hormonal therapy fails to slow the disease.

“In this group of patients we can use another hormone, but beyond that, short
of chemotherapy, there is not much more we can do,”” Small said. “PC-SPES can
be used as a second or third line hormone. We don’t know what kind of impact it
will have on survival, but it clearly offers a clinical benefit. It provides us
with another treatment we can use before chemotherapy.”

In addition, some men in both groups saw shrinkage of their tumors. Side
effects included impotency, lowered sex drive and breast tenderness. Overall,
PC-SPES was well tolerated. The men were enrolled in the trial for two years
and were given a dose of Nine capsules Daily..

While PC-SPES appears to be doing Androgen Deprivation in men with hormone dependent
disease, Small and colleagues believe there may be other active anti-cancer
ingredients in the supplement because it lowered PSA levels in men with hormone independent disease whose testosterone was already low.

“We have proven that this has some activity,” Small said. “The next step is to
sort out if this is any different from estrogen,” he said.

To that end, Small and colleagues at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in BostonMA
are enrolling 100 men with hormone independent disease for a trial to test
which agent, estrogen or PC-SPES, works better to slow the disease. Once one
therapy stops producing PSA declines, the patient will be switched to the other
agent. Patients will be enrolled for a year.

“The importance of that study is it will help us get to the mechanism of
PC-SPES,” Small said. Dosage was 6 to 9 pills , 3 times a day.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer, excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers,
in American men, according to the American Cancer Society. The organization
estimates that 180,400 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the
U.S. this year. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in
men, exceeded only by lung cancer. About 31,900 men in the United States will
die of this disease during 2016, according to the American Cancer Society.

Other authors on the paper include Mark Frohlich, MD, UCSF assistant professor
of medicine; Robert Bok, MD, PhD, UCSF assistant clinical professor of
medicine; Katsuto Shinohara, MD, UCSF assistant professor of urology; Gary
Grossfeld, MD, UCSF assistant professor of urology; Zinovi Rozenblat, UCSF
clinical research associate; William Kevin Kelly, DO, Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center; Michele Corry, NP, UCSF; David Reese, MD, UCSF assistant
clinical professor of medicine.

The study was supported by the Association for the Cure of Cancer of the
Prostate (CaP CURE).