[Chemotherapy for prostate cancer]. / Chimiothérapie du cancer de la prostate.

Chemotherapy treatment for patients with prostate cancer has advanced considerably during the past decade. The first demonstration of the efficacy of palliative chemotherapy in patients with hormone-resistant prostate cancer was followed by FDA approval of mitoxantrone in this setting and by studies showing the usefulness of several different drugs in these patients. Docetaxel became the standard treatment for them. The development of new cytotoxic molecules and targeted therapies as well as the evaluation of the efficacy of docetaxel in earlier stages of prostate cancer, with many ongoing studies, are the current lines of research for improving management of these hormone-refractory patients.