Background Long-term hormone therapy alone is usually standard care for metastatic or high-risk non-metastatic prostate malignancy. across seven stratification factors. Patients randomly allocated to arm D received celecoxib 400 mg twice daily given orally until 1 year or disease progression (including prostate-specific antigen [PSA] failure). The intermediate end result was failure-free survival (FFS) in three activity stages; the primary end result was overall survival in a Bleomycin hydrochloride subsequent efficacy stage. Research arms were Bleomycin hydrochloride compared pairwise against the control arm on an intention-to-treat basis. Accrual of further patients was discontinued in any research arm showing safety issues or insufficient evidence of activity (lack of benefit) compared with the control arm. The minimum targeted activity at the second intermediate activity stage was a hazard ratio (HR) of 0·92. This trial is usually registered with ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT00268476 and with Current Controlled Trials number ISRCTN78818544. Findings 2043 patients were enrolled in the trial from Oct 17 2005 to Jan 31 2011 of whom 584 were randomly allocated to receive hormone therapy alone (control group; arm A) and 291 to receive hormone therapy plus celecoxib (arm D). At the preplanned analysis of the second intermediate activity stage with 305 FFS events (209 in arm A 96 in arm D) there was no evidence of an advantage for hormone therapy plus celecoxib over Bleomycin hydrochloride hormone therapy alone: HR 0·98 (95% CI 0·90-1·06). 2-12 months FFS was 51% (95% CI 46-56) in arm A and 51% (95% CI 43-58) in arm D. There was no evidence of differences in the incidence of adverse events between groups (events of grade 3 or higher were noted at any time in 123 [23% 95 CI 20-27] patients in arm A and 64 [25% 19 in arm D). The most common grade 3-5 events adverse effects in both groups were endocrine disorders (55 [11%] of patients in arm A 19 [7%] in arm D) and musculoskeletal disorders (30 [6%] of patients in arm A 15 [6%] in arm D). The impartial data monitoring committee recommended stopping accrual to both celecoxib-containing arms on grounds of lack Rabbit polyclonal to HIP. of benefit and discontinuing celecoxib for patients currently on treatment which was endorsed by the trial steering committee. Interpretation Celecoxib 400 mg twice daily for up to 1 year is usually insufficiently active in patients starting hormone therapy for high-risk prostate malignancy and we do not recommend its use in this setting. Accrual continues seamlessly to the other research Bleomycin hydrochloride arms and follow-up of all arms will continue to assess effects on overall survival. Funding Cancer Research UK Pfizer Novartis Sanofi-Aventis Medical Research Council (London UK). Introduction Prostate cancer is usually a major health problem worldwide accounting for nearly a fifth of all newly diagnosed male cancers. In the UK roughly 35? 000 men are diagnosed with prostate malignancy each year and in 2008 almost 10?000 men died from the disease.1 Globally 913 cases were diagnosed in 2008.2 The current standard first-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic prostate malignancy is hormone therapy achieved either surgically with bilateral orchidectomy or medically with luteinising hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists or antagonists or oral antiandrogens 3 with additional radiotherapy for locally advanced cases.4 5 Hormone therapy produces responses in up to 95% of patients but it is not curative and disease recurs in nearly all patients; median time to progression is estimated as 18-24 months driven by metastatic cases 3 and is longer in patients with locally advanced disease.4 5 Such disease is referred to as hormone-refractory prostate malignancy (HRPC) or increasingly as castrate-refractory prostate malignancy (CRPC) although androgen-deprivation-refractory prostate malignancy might be a preferable term. In that setting there is now a range of systemic treatments including further Bleomycin hydrochloride hormonal manipulations 6 bisphosphonates 7 cytotoxic chemotherapy 8 radionuclides 9 immunotherapy 10 and newer hormone therapies.11 The traditional approach is to Bleomycin hydrochloride assess new treatments for prostate cancer in castrate-refractory disease. An alternative approach is to investigate new drugs and new approaches to treatment as first-line therapy in patients starting hormone therapy. At this point patients.