Understanding and deciding on appropriate treatments for men with advanced prostate cancer can be confusing. All the treatments come with side effects and one never knows what the benefits might be for an individual. Even with good clinical trials, men with advanced prostate cancer still need to navigate a most unclear path. Provenge, ever since [...]
According to an article written by Reuters some doctors have raised doubts about the efficacy of Provenge, known scientifically as sipuleucel-T. Prostate cancer vaccine Provenge has long incited passions unlike any other cancer therapy and the story seems to continue even to today. The current issue has been raised by Marie Huber, a trained scientist [...]
As I have discussed, immunological therapy will be a significant cancer treatment option in the future, but how will it actually develop and what will it look like? Provenge (sipuleucel-T), for the treatment of men with advanced prostate cancer, was the first FDA approved autologous immunologic vaccine therapy for any type of cancer. However, Provenge [...]
As a follow up to my last post about the three posters that appeared at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Genitourinary Cancers Symposium meeting I am going to share with you a video interview with Dr. Chadi Nabhan. Dr. Nabhan talks about his presentation about the phase III results of the Provenge IMPACT [...]
The American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) posted on Wednesday the abstracts from the Genitourinary Conference which is scheduled for February 2-4 in San Francisco, California. Dendreon, the creator of the immunotherapy Provenge for men with metastatic castrate resistant advanced prostate cancer has three very interesting and informative posters which will appear at the conference. [...]
From very early on, researchers and doctors have dreamed of using the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. The big question has been why doesn’t the immune system attack the tumor cells that invade healthy tissue? The really good news is that finally science is catching up with this vision. Therapeutic cancer vaccines that [...]
Many of us are aware of the newly approved drug Zytiga (abiraterone). It had demonstrated a survival advantage for men who are castrate resistant and failed chemotherapy. Zytiga was approved by the FDA in April and many of us with advanced prostate cancer have been taking advantage of the drug. You can learn more about [...]
The most exciting news today is about some research performed at the University of Pennsylvania where researchers took blood from the three leukemia patients and isolated the T cells, a type of immune cell in the blood. T cells recognize invading organisms and kill them, however they do not recognize cancer cells as invading cells, [...]
My recent Letter to the Editor of the New York Times in response to the Op-Ed piece decrying the cost of cancer treatments: Your recent editorial about the high cost of cancer drugs missed a number of very significant points which must be considered. Yes, newly developed cancer drugs are expensive, but when treatments like [...]
Things are looking up for our European readers. It must be frustrating for people outside of the United States to read this blog and learn about the many advances we now have in the US which are not available to them. The good news is that Sanofi has just launched Jevtana (cabazitaxel) in the UK [...]
