A novel prostate cancer vaccine may become the first approved cancer treatment vaccine in the United States. The Seattle-based biotechnology company Dendreon announced today that their treatment vaccine called Provenge “significantly prolongs survival in men with advanced prostate cancer.” A clinical trial of 512 men with metastatic prostate cancer showed that the vaccine significantly improved the odds of survival from prostate cancer compared to a placebo.

Provenge is a therapeutic or treatment vaccine, where a drug stimulates the patient’s own immune system to fight prostate cancer cells. The drug is produced from a patient's own cells and is used when testosterone hormone blockers are no longer effective. Therapeutic vaccines do not prevent disease like traditional vaccines do but rather they stimulate the patient’s own immune system to attack cancer cells after they have already developed.

If approved later this year, Provenge could be first cancer treatment vaccine in the United States. Two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined to approve the drug at that time and elected to wait for the results of the clinical trial that were briefly described today. The full clinical trials results will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association on April 28th in Chicago.

Cancer vaccines can be used to prevent cancer or to treat cancer. To date, the FDA has approved two vaccines that prevent cancer--a vaccine against the hepatitis B virus that causes liver cancer and a vaccine against human papillomavirus, which accounts for most cases of cervical cancer. If approved by the FDA, Provenge could be the first approved cancer treatment vaccine.

Many scientists believe that cancer treatment vaccines are a much more precise and less dangerous method to treat cancer compared to traditional chemotherapy where massive doses of potentially toxic drugs are used.

Learn more about the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer at Healia or ask our health professionals or medical students a question about prostate cancer.


_{Photo: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public domain}