The international PROTEUS clinical trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrates that adding apalutamide to hormonal therapy before and after surgery reduces by 20 percent the risk of metastasis or death in patients with high-risk prostate cancer. The results were reported this Friday by the Mexican scientific publication Investigación y Desarrollo.
The study enrolled 2,109 patients across 184 centers in 18 countries and is the first to offer robust evidence that intensifying treatment during the perioperative phase (six months before and six months after prostatectomy) can significantly delay tumor spread. Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality in men globally. The research, funded by Johnson & Johnson, was originally presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago and published in the NEJM on May 31, 2026. Its dissemination this Friday in Mexican scientific media brings these findings to the Spanish-speaking medical community.
At five years of follow-up, 78.2 percent of patients who received apalutamide remained alive and free of metastasis, compared with 73.5 percent in the conventional treatment group. The time to requiring a new oncological therapy nearly doubled, rising from 41.5 to 74.2 months, a significant improvement in patients' quality of life. Dr. Álvaro Juárez, a Spanish urologist who led the team with the largest number of patients enrolled in the trial, explained that the main innovation lies in "acting before the cancer re-emerges." "We reinforce treatment at the two key moments, before surgery and after it," Juárez said, adding that this attacks the disease "more completely" and gives the patient "the best possible opportunity from the outset." Grade 3 or 4 adverse events occurred in 39.6 percent of the apalutamide group, compared with 31 percent in the placebo group, primarily skin rashes.
Researchers continue to evaluate whether this strategy can increase overall survival, a figure that has not yet reached statistical maturity after 61.7 months of follow-up. Dr. Juárez emphasized that the publication "represents important scientific backing for a strategy that could be progressively incorporated into clinical practice, as it advances through evaluation by health authorities and scientific societies."
This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.