Living Life With Late-Stage Prostate Cancer
- English rock back Duran Duran is reuniting with former member Andy Taylor, 62, for a new album.
- Taylor is battling late-stage prostate cancer and said he is looking to continue living the life he loves during his journey.
- People with late-stage prostate cancer, like Andy Taylor, usually undergo a combination of treatments for their disease. New research and approvals are giving people more options to treat this advanced disease, so there is hope to be had.
- There are many treatment options available for people facing late-stage prostate cancer including, but certainly not limited to, androgen deprivation therapies, PARP inhibitors and radiopharmaceuticals. Talk with your doctors about what treatment options are most appropriate for you.
Andy is currently battling prostate cancer a disease that begins in the walnut-shaped prostate gland located between the rectum and bladder. This gland produces the fluid that nourishes sperm. He kept his disease private for quite some time but decided to share news of his diagnosis last year.
Read MoreWe don’t have too many specifics on Andy’s current treatment, but a more recent interview in February 2023 revealed that the father of four was really leaning into his love for music to help him stay positive during his cancer battle.
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"[I'm] trying to stay alive and live a life, which I am absolutely not giving up on," Andy told PEOPLE. “Music’s never had a greater value to me.
“One of the things that I learned early was, if you keep your mind active and you’re there and physically active, it really does [make a difference]. You’re carrying this grim reaper of a weight.”
More Music Coming from Duran Duran
And now we’ve learned there’s even more music on the horizon for Andy Taylor. The guitarist, who is set to release his second solo album, Man’s a Wolf to Man, this spring, is reportedly joining forces with Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon, 64, in Andy’s studio in Ibiza to work on tracks for the band’s new album.
"When he dropped the bomb two days before the Hall of Fame, it was really shocking and terribly sad,” Duran Duran bassist John Taylor, 62, recently said. “We're working on an album right now that is going to be coming out at the end of the year and he's playing guitar.
"There's a lot of cover songs on the album, songs meaningful to us when we were kids. So having him be a part of that project is great."
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Andy was in Duran Duran at the start, but he left in 1986 to pursue a solo career before rejoining 2001 for another five-year stint. So, his return to the studio for the band’s latest album is a long time coming.
"LeBon is flying to Ibiza to work with Andy. I kind of wish I was there. I think it'll be great,” John said. "It'll be really profound for them. They haven't been in the studio together in maybe 10 to 20 years."
The band whose other members include keyboardist Nick Rhodes, 60, and drummer Roger Taylor, 62 will kick off a UK tour in May and record for the album in Los Angeles and London.
Treating Late-Stage Prostate Cancer
People with late-stage prostate cancer, like Andy Taylor, usually undergo a combination of treatments for their disease. New research and approvals are giving people more options to treat this advanced disease, so there is hope to be had.
The drug nubeqa (also known as darolutamide), for example, was just approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August 2022 for use in combination with taxotere (docetaxel) for adult patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC).
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This oral medication is in a category of anti-androgens or anti-testosterone drugs, and it works by blocking the effects of testosterone to slow the growth and spread of prostate cancer. Androgen deprivation therapy, in general, uses surgery or medicines to lower the levels of androgens made by the testicles.
How Does Androgen Deprivation Therapy Help Shrink Prostate Cancer Tumors?
"If we take away testosterone, we can shrink down the tumor and hold it in check for often years and years and years," Dr. Stephen Freedland, a urologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet of androgen deprivation therapy in prostate cancer.
Talk to your doctor about whether nubeqa or other androgen deprivation therapies are right for you, but also consider the possibility of PARP inhibitors. These drugs work by stopping the activity of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase, a protein involved in DNA repair which, in turn, causes DNA to be unable to repair itself in cancer cells and therefore leads to the death of these cancer cells.
The two PARP inhibitors currently approved by the FDA are:
Some prostate cancers express the protein PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) which can be targeted with medication. So, the radiopharmaceutical lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan (otherwise known as pluvicto) is yet another treatment option for some patients. In March 2022, this drug was FDA approved to treat patients with PSMA-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).
"The approval of lutetium is a major step in the development of personalized treatment for advanced prostate cancer," Dr. David Penson, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview. "This agent specifically targets PSMA-positive metastasis and represents the first theranostic agent for use in castration-resistant metastatic prostate cancer."
Generally speaking, radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive are agents used to diagnose certain medical problems or treat certain diseases, according to the Mayo Clinic. And Dr. Penson says this specific medication is "theranostic" because it combines diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities by identifying the presence of PSMA on a patient's cancer cells and then treating it directly with minimal exposure to normal tissues.
There are also plenty of other treatments for people with prostate cancer to turn to when dealing with their disease. Make sure you talk with your doctor about options and even ask if a clinical trial might be right for you.
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