From CBS News this week on March 30, 2007:
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Vaccine Therapy For Prostate Cancer
Study Shows Provenge Can Ignite Immune System To Fight The Disease
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CBS) When Eduardo Garcia's prostate cancer spread to his hip bone six years ago, his doctors decided to try something new. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports that they injected him with a vaccine to ignite his immune system to fight the cancer. After three doses of a drug called Provenge, his cancer is in check.
"It worked for me, and it could work for many people in the future," Garcia says.
Vaccine therapy is a new frontier of cancer treatment. It doesn't require invasive surgery or toxic chemotherapy, with all its side effects.
Here's how it works: Tumors sometimes trick the body into thinking cancer cells are normal. Provenge tells the immune system that cancer cells are the enemy and should be attacked. One study shows that 127 patients with advanced prostate cancer survived an average of 4 1/2 months longer than those not on the drug.
"This is a very desperate group of patients who have no other options. The cancer has spread all over their body, so that four-month survival advantage really means a lot to these men," Dr. David Penson of USC says.
Right now, this vaccine is still experimental and only for prostate cancer that does not respond to hormone therapy.
Urologist Dr. Mitchell Benson says the vaccine is a step forward in the fight against prostate cancer.
"Where this is going to have the most applicability in the future is for the patient who has the very first signs of relapse where the amount of cancer in the body is not so great, and in that instance this could result in prolonged remissions," Benson explains.
Scientists also have been working on therapy to boost the immune the system to fight other kinds of cancers, reports Dr. LaPook. The drug maker expects the FDA will decide whether to approve this prostate cancer vaccine by May 15.