Pre-Prostatectomy Lovastatin on Prostate Cancer

Pharmacodynamic Phase 0 trial of pre-prostatectomy lovastatin to downregulate MYC in localized prostate cancer. Rationale: Based on available clinical and preclinical data, the investigators theorize that high-dose lovastatin therapy will decrease MYC levels in human prostate cancers shown to have MYC overexpression on biopsy. Experimental Methods: The investigators propose a prospective, dose-finding pharmacodynamic study of lovastatin in intermediate/high-grade localized prostate cancer. The study will involve 30 eligible patients with localized prostate cancer with a Gleason sum of 7 to 10 who elect to undergo prostatectomy at Johns Hopkins. Five eligible men will be scheduled to receive oral lovastatin following a four times a day schedule, at the starting dose of 12 mg/kg/day. Patients will receive 2 weeks (14 days) of daily oral lovastatin prior to surgery. Following an initial safety monitoring period of a month, the investigators enroll at the next dose level (20 mg/kg/day). Similar dose de-escalation will continue over three more dose levels (1, 4 and 8 mg/kg/day) until 25 patients total are enrolled. Following surgery, prostatectomy specimens will undergo MYC immunohistochemistry (IHC) and compared to MYC IHC from matched biopsy samples. Pharmacodynamic efficacy (PE) will be defined as greater than 60% inhibition of MYC expression by IHC in greater than 60% of patients in prostatectomy tumor specimens compared to the matched biopsy. Expected Results: The investigators expect lovastatin will enforce the downregulation of MYC levels in prostatectomy samples as compared to pre-lovastatin treatment core biopsy samples. The investigators also expect little toxicity to patients as reported in prior phase I and II trials using similar doses of lovastatin.