Cabazitaxel is a new type of chemotherapy treatment for men with prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body (advanced prostate cancer) and has stopped responding to hormone therapy and the chemotherapy medicine docetaxel (Taxotere®). It is used to help control symptoms and not to cure prostate cancer.

For more information on cabazitaxel, speak to your specialist team or call our confidential Helpline.

Cabazitaxel is a chemotherapy treatment. Chemotherapy uses anti-cancer (cytotoxic) medicines to kill cancer cells. It is used to help control symptoms and not to cure prostate cancer.

Cabazitaxel is given through a drip. This involves running a liquid containing the medicine through a small tube (cannula) into a vein in your arm.

In a recent clinical trial, men who were given cabazitaxel lived about two and a half months longer than men who were given a different type of chemotherapy.

Cabazitaxel is suitable for men whose prostate cancer has spread to other parts of the body (advanced prostate cancer) and has stopped responding to hormone therapy and the chemotherapy medicine docetaxel (Taxotere®).

Cabazitaxel is licensed for use in the UK. But, it is not yet widely available on the NHS because the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has not yet recommended it for use. NICE weighs up the evidence on how well a medicine works and how much it costs. It then recommends whether or not the medicine should be available on the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

At the moment, NICE are looking at all the evidence on cabazitaxel before deciding whether or not to recommend that it is available on the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. NICE have released draft guidelines which recommend that cabazitaxel is not made available on the NHS. However, this recommendation is not final and the decision making process is still ongoing. You can read The Prostate Cancer Charity's comment on these draft guidelines on our research news page. There is a similar organisation to NICE in Scotland, called the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC). The SMC are also looking at the evidence on cabazitaxel, to decide whether or not the medicine should be available on the NHS in Scotland.

Your local healthcare provider may choose to provide cabazitaxel on the NHS for men who are suitable for treatment before it is recommended by NICE or the SMC.

If your doctor tells you that cabazitaxel is suitable for you and you decide you want to have it, but your local healthcare provider does not provide it free on the NHS, you may still be able to get treatment. You can read our page Getting new medicines for more information on how to get access to medicines before they have been recommended by NICE or the SMC.

Abiraterone is a new type of hormone therapy for men whose prostate cancer has spread to other parts of the body (advanced prostate cancer) and has stopped responding to other hormone therapy and chemotherapy treatments. It is used to help control symptoms and not to cure prostate cancer.

For more information on abiraterone, speak to your specialist team or call our confidential Helpline.

Abiraterone is taken as a tablet and works by stopping your testicles and other tissues in the body from making the hormone testosterone. Without testosterone, the cancer cells are not able to grow, wherever they are in the body.

In a recent clinical trial, men who received abiraterone lived about four months longer than those who were given a placebo. A placebo is a dummy treatment, for example, a sugar pill that looks the same as a new medicine being tested.

Abiraterone is suitable for men with advanced prostate cancer that has stopped responding to other hormone therapy and chemotherapy treatments.

Abiraterone is licensed for use in the UK but the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently made a draft decision not to supply it on the NHS. NICE weighs up the evidence on how well a medicine works and how much it costs. It then recommends whether or not the medicine should be available on the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If your doctor thinks abiraterone is suitable for you, they may still be able to get it for you. If you live in England they can apply to the Cancer Drugs Fund. If you live in Northern Ireland, they can apply to your local Health and Social Care Trust. Speak to your doctor about this.

In Wales, the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group, which advises the Welsh Assembly about new medicines, has recently made a recommendation about abiraterone. This means that if you live in Wales and your doctor thinks abiraterone is suitable for you, they should be able to get it for you by applying to your Local Health Board. This may change when NICE make their final decision.

Find out more about what you can do to feed into NICE's final decision on abiraterone.

There is a similar organisation to NICE in Scotland, called the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC). The SMC has also recently made a decision not to supply abiraterone on the NHS in Scotland. However, if your doctor thinks abiraterone is suitable for you, they may be able to get it for you by applying for it through your Local Health Board.

Find out more about what you can do to feed into the SMC's decision on abiraterone.

If you are already taking abiraterone, you should still be able to get it.

Researchers are also looking into whether abiraterone may be effective in men who have stopped responding to hormone therapy but have not yet had chemotherapy. The manufacturers of abiraterone have not yet applied for a license to allow doctors to prescribe the medicine for these men.

"In a recent clinical trial, men who were given cabazitaxel lived about two and a half months longer than men who were given a different type of chemotherapy."

This comes from:

De Bono JS, Oudard S, Ozguroglu M, Hansen S, Machiels JP, Kocak I et al. Prednisone plus cabazitaxel or mitoxantrone for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer progressing after docetaxel treatment: a randomised open-label trial. The Lancet 201;376:1147- 1154.

"In a recent clinical trial, men who received abiraterone lived about four months longer than those who were given a placebo."

This comes from:

de Bono JS, Logothetis CJ, Molina A, Fizazi K, North S, Chu L et al.. Abiraterone and increased survival in metastatic prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2011;364:1995-2005.