Abstract: Objective To study the effects of abiraterone on phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT) signal pathway and the levels of tumor markers in the elderly patients with prostate cancer. Methods A total of 88 elderly patients with prostate cancer treated in our hospital from June 2018 to June 2020 were enrolled in this study. They were randomly divided into two groups, with 44 cases in each group. The control group was treated with prednisone and the observation group was treated with abiraterone acetate on the basis of the control group. The expression of PI3K/AKT signal pathway after treatment was detected, and the levels of serum prostate specific antigen (PSA), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), tumor cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21-1) and neuron specific enolase (NSE) were measured and compared between the two groups before and after treatment. The distribution of T lymphocyte subsets and the inflammatory factor including interleukin-8 (IL-8) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α)were observed before and after treatment. All patients were followed up for 1 year, and the 1-year survival rate of the two groups was compared. Results The expression levels of AKT and PI3K in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P＜0.05 or P<0.01). The levels of serum PSA, CEA, CYFRA21-1 and NSE in the two groups after treatment were significantly lower than those before treatment (P<0.05), especially in the observation group (P<0.01). The levels of CD4+, CD4+/CD8+ after treatment were significantly higher than those before treatment in both groups (P<0.05), especially in the observation group(P<0.01). The levels of IL-8, TNF-α were significantly lower than those before treatment in both groups, especially in the observation group (P<0.05 or P<0.01). The 1-year overall survival rate in the observation group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). Conclusions Abiraterone can effectively improve the inflammatory level and immune function of the elderly patients with prostate cancer, and can inhibit the expression of PI3K and AKT and reduce the levels of tumor markers. It is valuable to prolong the survival time of the patients.

Key words: prostate cancer, abiraterone, phosphoinositide 3-kinase, protein kinase B, tumor marker