Gene Expression in Patients With Metastatic Prostate Cancer Receiving CYP-17 Inhibition Therapy

Inclusion Criteria

• •Histological diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the prostate or documented history in medical records of having received treatment for prostate cancer diagnosis
• •Metastatic disease on chest, abdominal, or pelvic computed tomography (CT) and/or bone scan amenable to biopsy
• •Hemoglobin (HgB) \> 9.0 gm
• •Absolute neutrophil count (ANC) \>= 1500 cells/L
• •Platelets \>= 100,000 u/L
• •Creatinine =\< 1.5 x upper limit of normal (ULN)
• •Serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) (aspartate aminotransferase (AST)) and serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) (alanine aminotransferase (ALT)) =\< 1.5 x ULN
• •Castrate serum testosterone level (\< 50 ng/dL -or- \< 1.7 nmol/L)
• •Progression while on or after androgen deprivation therapy defined as:
• •* Progressive measurable disease: at least a 20% increase in the sum of the longest diameters of measurable lesions over the smallest sum observed or the appearance of one or more new lesions as assessed by imaging during hormone ablation treatment; measurable lesions are nodal or visceral soft-tissue lesions with nodal lesions \>= 20 mm in diameter or visceral/soft-tissue lesions \>= 10 mm in diameter OR
• •* Bone scan progression: appearance of 2 or more new lesions on bone scan during hormone ablation treatment OR
• •* Increasing serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level: two consecutive increases in PSA levels documented over a previous reference value obtained at least one week apart are required; if the third PSA value is less than the second, an additional fourth test to confirm a rising PSA is acceptable; a minimum starting value of 2.0 ng/mL is required for study enrollment
• •* Note: androgen deprivation therapy may have included either medical or surgical castration
• •\>= 14 days has passed since completing radiotherapy (exception for radiotherapy: \>= 7 days since completing a single fraction of =\< 800 centigray (cGy) to a restricted field or limited-field radiotherapy to non-marrow bearing area such as an extremity or orbit) at the time of registration
• •Patients who may have received systemic chemotherapy or any novel therapeutic CYP-17 inhibitor and/or novel androgen receptor (AR) inhibitor agents previously for prostate cancer should have received the last dose of the previously administered systemic therapy \>= 12 months from the date of registration
• •Provide informed written consent
• •Has recovered from any other therapy-related toxicity to =\< grade 2, (except alopecia, anemia and any signs or symptoms of androgen deprivation therapy)
• •Willing to provide tissue and blood samples for correlative research purposes
• •Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS) 0, 1 or 2
• •Patient is considered a candidate for initiating CYP-17 inhibitors abiraterone acetate and prednisone after failure of hormonal therapy and has no contra-indication to starting this combination as standard of care
• •Patients have stopped any antiandrogen therapy (including bicalutamide) \>= 4 weeks prior to first dose of study drug; in addition any other therapies for prostate cancer, other than gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogue therapy, such as progesterone, medroxyprogesterone, progestins (megestrol), or 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (e.g., finasteride or dutasteride), must be discontinued \>= 2 weeks before the first dose of study drug