How exciting! I just read an article this morning which introduces Provenge, a vaccine that helps the immune system fight tumors, specifically related to prostate cancer. Read up below!

WASHINGTON: A first-of-a-kind prostate cancer treatment that uses the body’s immune system to fight the disease received federal approval Thursday, offering an important alternative to more taxing treatments like chemotherapy.
Dendreon Corp.’s Provenge vaccine trains the immune system to fight tumors. It’s called a “vaccine” even though it treats disease rather than prevents it.
Doctors have been trying to develop such a therapy for decades, and Provenge is the first to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
“The big news here is that this is the first immunotherapy to win approval, and I suspect within five to ten years immunotherapies will be a big part of cancer therapy in general,” said Dr. Phil Kantoff, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who helped run the studies of Provenge.
Experimental vaccines to treat other cancers — including the deadly skin disease melanoma and an often fatal childhood tumor called neuroblastoma — are already in late-stage development.
These are the main points I took from the article ….
- Provenge offers an important fourth approach by directing the body’s natural defense mechanisms against the disease.
- The treatment is intended for prostate cancer that has spread elsewhere in the body and is not responding to hormone therapy.
- It will serve as an addition to current medical practice, not a replacement.
- Company studies showed that taking Provenge added four months to the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer.
- Dendreon said Thursday the drug will cost $93,000 per patient.
- Analysts expect the product to reach blockbuster sales status — over $1 billion — by 2016, as the company expands production capacity.
- Each regimen of Provenge must to tailored to the immune system of the patient using a time-consuming formulation process.
- Doctors collect special blood cells from each patient that help the immune system recognize cancer as a threat. The cells are mixed with a protein found on most prostate cancer cells and another substance to rev up the immune system. The resulting “vaccine” is given back to the patient as three infusions two weeks apart.
- About 192,000 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in 2009, and 27,000 men died of the disease, according to the FDA.
- Prostate cancer most often affects older men.
- Side effects of Provenge are relatively mild, such as chills, fatigue, fever, and headache.
- By comparison, side effects of chemotherapy typically include hair loss, nausea, anemia and diarrhea.
To read the complete article, click here.