Zytiga is a brand-name prescription medication. It’s used to treat two types of prostate cancer:

• metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC)
• metastatic high-risk castration-sensitive prostate cancer (CSPC)

Metastatic means the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Both of these cancers are considered advanced.

The word “castration” refers to the lowering of testosterone levels. Testosterone usually plays a role in stimulating prostate cancer growth. Prostate cancer is considered castration-resistant if the cancer continues to grow or spread even with therapy or surgery to lower testosterone levels.

High-risk castration-sensitive cancer still responds to lowered testosterone levels but requires more aggressive treatment.

Zytiga contains the drug abiraterone acetate. It’s a type of medication used in hormone therapy, which is a treatment that lowers the level of male hormones in the body. Reduced levels of male hormones, such as testosterone, help slow or stop the growth of prostate cancer cells.

Zytiga comes as an oral tablet that you take once a day. You’ll take Zytiga with a corticosteroid (prednisone) to reduce the risk of certain side effects. In some cases, you’ll take Zytiga and prednisone with a different type of hormone therapy to further lower testosterone levels.

Effectiveness

In clinical studies of men with metastatic CRPC, taking Zytiga with prednisone in addition to standard hormone therapy prolonged life by about 4.5 months. For men with CSPC, drug therapy that included Zytiga lowered the risk of death by 34% over 52 months.

Another study looked at men with either metastatic CRPC or CSPC who were starting hormone therapy for the first time. Those who took Zytiga had a three-year survival rate of 83%. This means that they lived for three years after they started taking the drug. Those who received standard therapy had a three-year survival rate of 76%.

Also in this study, Zytiga lowered the risk of death within three years of starting treatment by 37%. This was compared to standard therapy.

FDA approval

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Zytiga for metastatic CRPC in 2011.

The FDA approved Zytiga for CSPC in 2018.