What is needed to advance the use of natural products in prostate cancer?

In this video, Channing J. Paller, MD, discusses the most critical next step in advancing the use of natural products as effective and safe complementary therapies in prostate cancer. She is the senior author of the recent Urologic Oncology paper, “Harnessing nature's therapeutic potential: A review of natural products in prostate cancer management.” Paller is an associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, director of Prostate Cancer Clinical Research, and associate director of oncology, Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network, Baltimore, Maryland.

Transcription:

In your opinion, what is the most critical next step in advancing the use of natural products as effective and safe complementary therapies in prostate cancer?

The most critical next step is to focus on enhancing both the scientific rigor of our clinical trials and the personalization of our treatment. There has been progress in improving the bioavailability of natural products, such as through nanoparticle formulations or chemical modifications, but there still needs to be more robust and personalized approaches to better match natural products with individual patients. For example, using advanced models like patient-derived xenografts or organoids may allow for more accurate testing of natural products, and personalized approaches should be employed. Genetic profiling, tailored dosing, individual treatment plans, just like we do with immunotherapy for MSI high or BRCA and PARP inhibitors. We need to start doing these for our natural products as well. We have started to look at these, like SOD and other biomarkers, but we need to study them more rigorously and more systematically to help us figure out who really will benefit and who might not. The other big thing we need is large-scale diet trials in the prostate cancer population. We don't have those in the same way that we do for breast cancer. I just worked with a bunch of breast cancer doctors to summarize the effects of soy, green tea, enterolactone, so those are lignans like in flax and sulforaphane like in Brussel sprouts, to help us understand what may help prevent breast cancer or recurrence of breast cancer. We don't have data like that at such a large scale in prostate cancer yet, and so I think we need to start looking at intake in our patients as well on a broader scale to see how diet may actually be helping our patients and things that they can do every day to take care of themselves and live a happier, healthier life.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.