Cabazitaxel: A novel taxane for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer-current implications and future prospects

Recent advances in the management of prostate cancer have shown considerable development with time and many novel therapeutic agents have been approved over the past years. For patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), initially docetaxel was the standard chemotherapy but once they became refractory to docetaxel, no treatment improved survival. This scenario changed in June 2010 when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Cabazitaxel as a new therapeutic option for patients with mCRPC resistant to docetaxel. Cabazitaxel, being a novel tubulin-binding taxane with poor affinity for P-glycoprotein, decreases the chances of resistance. It has shown antitumor activity in preclinical, phase I, II and III clinical studies in docetaxel-resistant tumors. This article summarises the background, pharmacodynamic, kinetics and clinical development of cabazitaxel for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer. Future development and rational use of this drug in other tumors is under therapeutic investigation.