Anti-hormone treatment for prostate cancer relapsing after treatment with flutamide and castration. Addition of aminoglutethimide and low dose hydrocortisone to combination therapy.

The effect of further adrenal androgen blockade with aminoglutethimide (AG) plus low dose hydrocortisone (HC) was studied in 119 patients with clinical stage D2 prostate cancer who previously progressed after standard hormone therapy and were under progression while receiving the combination therapy with Flutamide and castration. Using the objective criteria of the US NPCP, 1 complete, 2 partial and 14 stable responses were obtained for a total response rate of 14.3%, while 102 patients continued to progress. The 50% probability of survival was 21.0 months for the responders and 9.2 months for the non-responders. The present data indicate that further androgen blockade with AG + low dose HC is well tolerated and can be of benefit to a significant proportion of patients in progression at a very late stage of the disease.