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NEW DRUG UPDATE
Vantas shown to decrease PSA levels in nearly all patients
New Products
Vantas implant
Use: prostate cancer
Health Canada has approved the Vantas implant for the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer.
Vantas is a subdermal implant, inserted in the patient's upper arm, which contains histrelin acetate within its core. For more than a decade, clinical experience has shown the drug histrelin to be an extremely potent inhibitor of gonadotropin secretion. Since 1991, histrelin has been prescribed for the treatment of CPP (central precocious puberty). It is 1.5 to 10 times more potent than leuprolide as an agonist of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) according to Paladin Laboratories Inc., the supplier of Vantas. The chronic administration of histrelin desensitizes the responsiveness of pituitary gonadotropin, which causes a reduction in testicular steroidogenesis. Postimplantation, serum histrelin levels have been shown to remain steady over 52 weeks of treatment, with a rapid decrease of mean testosterone levels by week two.
After patients begin their treatment with Vantas, nearly all experience a decrease in their PSA levels. In one study, 93%...