mCRPC has been one of the difficult aspects of prostate cancer treatment, with slow progress over the past decades until 2004, when first-line treatment with docetaxel was shown to prolong survival in such patients. Abiraterone acetate (zytiga), an inhibitor of CYP17, a key enzyme in the androgen synthesis pathway, was approved in 2011 for the treatment of prostate cancer patients who have failed to respond to docetaxel chemotherapy. The recently published results of the COU-AA-302 study showed a median OS of 35.3 months and 30.1 months for patients in the zytiga and control groups, respectively, reducing the risk of death by 21%, and also improving imaging progression-free survival (rPFS) in the zytiga group. This implies a survival benefit for early application of abiraterone in patients with mCRPC. The U.S. FDA has approved the indication for zytiga on December 10, 2012 to extend to patients with metastatic denuded resistant prostate cancer who have not received prior chemotherapy. The most common side effects of zytiga include: fatigue, joint swelling or discomfort, swelling due to fluid retention, hot flashes, diarrhea, vomiting, cough, hypertension, shortness of breath, and urinary tract infections; the most common laboratory abnormalities include: decreased red blood cell count, increased alkaline phosphatase, decreased lymphocyte levels, increased fatty acids, increased blood glucose, and increased liver enzymes.