Medications like Abiraterone (brand name Zytiga) work by aggressively cutting off the supply cancer cells need to survive. This brings us to what researchers call the “ARPI era” — the current period in advanced prostate cancer treatment where Androgen Receptor Pathway Inhibitors (ARPIs) are taking center stage. These are powerful, targeted oral medications (think enzalutamide and abiraterone) that are used alongside standard hormone therapy to block testosterone from fueling cancer growth.
So, what did researchers find? They dug into national cancer data, looking at years of life lost, cancer-specific deaths, and deaths from other causes — and the results were eye-opening.
African American patients were consistently losing more years of life than Caucasian patients. In the abiraterone era, that gap was stark: African American patients lost 8.1 years on average, compared to 5.4 years for Caucasian patients. Fast forward to the ARPI era, and things improved — African American patients lost 4.6 years versus 2.6 years for Caucasian patients. The gap got smaller, which is encouraging news.
When it came to cancer-specific deaths, the racial gap also nearly disappeared in the ARPI era, which is a real win. But here’s the catch — African American patients still had higher death rates from other causes in both time periods.
Newer treatments are making a real difference for Black patients, particularly when it comes to dying from prostate cancer itself. But racial disparities in overall health outcomes haven’t gone away. Clearing the confusion on when Black men should get prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests might help us identify prostate cancer earlier, when it is easier to treat.
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