An Approved Vaccine To Treat Prostate Cancer Has Few Side Effects

An Approved Vaccine To Treat Prostate Cancer Has Few Side Effects.
The newly approved health-giving prostate cancer vaccine, Provenge, is non-toxic and has few viewpoint effects, a unfledged study finds. In April, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine for use in men with advanced prostate cancer who had failed hormone therapy whosphil.com. "Provenge was approved based on both refuge and clinical data," said tip-off researcher Dr Simon J Hall, presiding officer of urology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

This protection observations shows that there are very circumscribed inconsiderable effects. The advantage of the vaccine for patients with metastatic hormone-resistant prostate cancer is that it has fewer insignificant things than chemotherapy, which is the only other treatment option for these patients. In addition, Provenge has improved survival over chemotherapy.

The run-of-the-mill survival time for men given Provenge is 4,5 months, although some patients apothegm their lives extended by two to three years. "This is a newly accessible treatment, with very predetermined side effects, compared to anything else that a mankind would be considering in this state". Hall was to present the results on Monday at the American Urological Association annual gathering in San Francisco.

Data from four status 3 trials, which included 904 men randomized to either Provenge or placebo, showed the vaccine extended survival, improved status of human and had only mild side effects. In fact, more than 83 percent of the men who received Provenge were able to do carry out activities without any restrictions, the researchers noted.

In terms of opinion effects, the most public were flu-like symptoms such as chills, fever and headache, which were seen in 3,5 percent of the men. Usually it took only a lifetime or two for the symptoms to resolve. More of consequence side effects, such as infusion reactions, influenced 3,5 percent of the patients. Cerebrovascular problems contrived 3,5 percent of those who received the vaccine and 2,6 percent of those who received placebo, Hall's club found.

Dr Nelson Neal Stone, a clinical professor of urology and emission oncology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said that "the string stuff are adore having the flu and they can be managed with aspirin". However, Stone barbed to one big drawback to Provenge: cost. "I've heard $30000, I've heard $90000. I have no fantasy what it's present to cost. And who's going to pay for it?" he said.

Provenge is a salutary (not preventive) vaccine that is made from the patient's own hoary blood cells. Once removed from the patient, the cells are treated with the sedate and placed back into the patient. These treated cells then cause an invulnerable response, which in turn kills cancer cells, while leaving usual cells unharmed. According to the FDA, Provenge is given intravenously in a three-dose time delivered in two-week intervals.

The vaccine was developed by Seattle-based Dendreon Corp, which conducted opening studies all men with advanced prostate cancer who had already failed definitive hormone treatment. According to American Cancer Society estimates, more than 192000 revitalized cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year, and 27360 men pop off from the disease.

Prostate cancer is the most conventional form of cancer diagnosed in American men, after pellicle cancer. More than 2 million American men who have had prostate cancer at some unit are still packed today medicine. The death rate is going down and the disease is being found earlier, according to the cancer society.