Immunotherapy has a major and expanding role in the treatment of cancer, including advanced prostate cancer. Over time there have been a number of naysayers as the immunotherapy Provenge has played the role whipping boy by critics. The common criticism leveled at Provenge can be summed up simply, “It doesn’t work.” The plain truth is [...]
There is some really exciting news on the horizon around immunotherapy for advanced prostate cancer. Bavarian Nordic, the pharmaseutical company that has, along with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), been running clinical trials on Prostvac has unoffically let it been known that Prostvac when combined with another investigational immunologic therapy, Yervoy, has helped to significantly [...]
Last October at the European Cancer Congress 2013 there was a release of data from a phase 3 study of Ipilimumab (CA 184-043) that showed that it might be effective in treating castration-resistant prostate cancer in men who have a low burden of disease; however it failed to show at the required 95% confidence level [...]
Some bad news was reported today. Results from the Phase 3 randomized, double-blind clinical trial (Study 043) comparing Yervoy 10 mg/kg (ipilimumab) (n=399) to placebo (n=400) following radiation in men with advanced metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who have received prior treatment with docetaxel showed no increase in overall survival. Yervoy is an immunotherapy which [...]
For those who might be interested in the April 23, 2012 edition of The New Yorker Magazine, Jerome Groopman has written an excellent article on the history and current state of Immunotherapy. The article is entitled "The T-Cell Army" and it is on page 24. Not only does the article review the history (going all [...]
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 [...]
