Ethnic Pharmacogenomic Differences in the Management of Asian Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Progression to metastatic disease occurs in about half of all men who develop prostate cancer (PC), one of the most common cancers in men worldwide. Androgen deprivation therapy has been the mainstay therapy for patients with metastatic PC (mPC) since the 1940s. In the last decade, there has been unprecedented advancement in systemic therapies, e.g., taxane, androgen-signalling pathway inhibitors, and biomarker-driven targeted therapies for various stages of disease, resulting in overall survival improvement. Adding to ongoing controversies over how best to treat these patients is the recognition that ethnicity may influence prognosis and outcomes. This review discusses recent evidence for the impacts of Asian ethnicity specifically, which includes environmental, sociocultural, and genetic factors, on the approach to pharmacological management of mPC. Clear inter-ethnic differences in drug tolerability, serious adverse events (AEs), and genetic heterogeneity must all be considered when dosing and scheduling for treatment, as well as designing future precision studies in PC.

Keywords: Asians; chemotherapy; metastasis; pharmacogenomics; prostate cancer; taxane.

Figure 1

Factors that may contribute toward pharmacoethnic differences in the management of Asian mPC patients.

Figure 2

Strategies for reducing the risk of taxane-related myelosuppression in Asian prostate cancer (PC) patients. GCSF, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor; FN, febrile neutropenia.