At the third session of PHEN’s 2025 African American Prostate Cancer Disparity Summit, prostate cancer survivors shared their personal experiences with this disease and their participation in clinical trials. The prostate cancer survivors who participated in the discussion include:

• Mr. Sherman Womack, Prostate Cancer Survivor
• Mr. Charles “Chuck” Christian, Prostate Cancer Survivor
• Mr. Art Cain, Prostate Cancer Survivor

PHEN’s own Dr. Keith Crawford asked the panelists about their experience and why they chose to join a clinical trial. Mr. Womack explained that he joined a clinical trial because the medications he was prescribed stopped working. He began participating in a Pluvicto clinical trial in 2024. Currently, he is in another clinical trial at Mass General.

Mr. Cain was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2015. By 2019, he faced a recurrence, his PSA level continued to rise, and he joined the PANTHER clinical trial. He met Dr. Daniel George from the Duke Cancer Center who recommended the PANTHER trial, which is a combination therapy of apalutamide and abiraterone. His PSA level immediately started to fall, and he added the medication PROVENGE six months later as part of the clinical trial. His PSA level has been mostly undetectable, staying at 0.01 over the last five years.

“I got an understanding that cancer cells aren’t homogeneous. They’re heterogenous, which means you have to attack it in a lot of different combinations,” said Mr. Cain. “I was open to two different drugs. I was open to immunotherapy. I was open to whatever treatment that could deal with the diversity of cancer cells.”

Another interesting finding from the PANTHER trial is that Black men were found to respond better to the therapy than White men. This shows the importance of involving diverse populations in prostate cancer clinical trials.

Mr. Christian explained he was an athlete and a football player at Michigan State University. By 2016, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer with metastasis to the bones. His first doctor predicted him to have no more than three years to live, and he began chemotherapy. He was very sick, mostly bedridden, and could not walk far. However, he then received radioligand therapy/nuclear medicine as part of a clinical trial overseas. After the first treatment, he was able to walk two miles. By the second week of treatment, he was walking four miles a day. This clinical trial saved his life.