Yesterday, the first conclusions of a study on prostate cancer patients were made public. It seems that for the first time in history a cancer vaccine is delaying the progression of the disease and patients can live longer.
This vaccine was desperately needed because asymptomatic advanced prostate cancer is known to be resistant to hormone therapy used in early detected prostate cancers and no other treatment is effective against it.
Eric J. Small of the University of California at San Francisco said that this trial is an important one because it will open the way to other treatments regarding prostate cancer.
L. Gulley of the National Cancer Institute was very excited about the discovery and declared that the vaccine is important not only for those who suffer of the disease but also for the field. This vaccine confirms what everybody denied, that vaccines can really work.
This vaccine is not like the others that are designed to prevent a disease. This is made to treat advanced prostate cancer by increasing the immune system’s response to cancer cells.
The vaccine has been made out of a genetically engineered protein and a dendritic cell provided from the patient’s bloodstream. Three shots of the vaccine were made over the course of a month. The immune system will react and will activate immune T-cells to find and destroy the cancer cells.
Eric J. Small along with other 19 US institutions conducted the study which was funded by the Dendreon Corporation (the developer of the vaccine) based in Seattle, Washington. Small included in the study 127 patients suffering of asymptomatic metastatic hormone refractory prostate cancer (HRPC). 82 of them received the vaccine and 45 got placebo.
For those treated with the vaccine, the median rate of survival was 25.9 months. For those who got a placebo treatment, the overall of survival was 21.4 months.
The conclusions were that 115 patients of this group had progressive disease at the time of data analysis and all patients were followed for survival for 3 years.
The vaccine was well tolerated by patients and the side effects were mild: fever and chills. Five of the subjects declared they had mild urinary problems. This is good news because chemotherapy gives a lot of unbearable side effects.
Most of the patients can follow a treatment based on surgery, radiation and hormone therapy, but asymptomatic metastatic HRPC is known to be resistant to hormone therapy and every year more than 30,000 men die because and no other treatment is effective against the disease, this is why a treatment was urgently required.
For more information about prostate cancer treatment and about prostate cancer please review this web site http://www.prostate-cancer-center.com
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