Fighting Prostate Cancer with Radium-223 — Not Your Madame's Isotope

As each year ushers in new and innovative survival-enhancing treatments for castration-resistant prostate cancer with bone metastases, patients and their physicians have a sense of empowerment associated with this growing therapeutic arsenal.1–5 Nonetheless, nearly 30,000 men still die from prostate cancer every year, and many have debilitating illness from osseous involvement. For this latter group, Alpharadin in Symptomatic Prostate Cancer Patients, a randomized, placebo-controlled study reported by Parker et al. in this issue of the Journal, focuses on a new weapon in anticancer therapy.6 Radium-223 dichloride (radium-223), the first alpha emitter to undergo phase 3 testing and receive approval . . .