Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Prostate Cancer Vaccine May Be Very Beneficial

A new vaccine by Dendreon Corporation has shown increased living time for men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. This would be the first vaccine to specifically help treat the disease that over 186,000 men get each year.

Unlike most vaccines (like MMR or rabies), the prostate cancer vaccine does not prevent disease; it actually trains the immune system to recognize tumor cells and attack them, which is a very useful strategy. To test the vaccine, Dendreon Corp. performed a study using 127 men.

In this study, men with advanced prostate cancer who took the vaccine lived a median of 26 months, or 4.5 months longer than men without it. Even better, 34% of men who got the vaccine were alive 3 years afterward, compared to only 11% of men who didn't get the vaccine. The study was not large enough for FDA approval, but Dendreon Corp. recently ran a study with 512 men involved. The results seen in this study were found to be very similar and should get more attention from the FDA.

This vaccine appears to be a great step forward, but I don't believe the effects are worth the cost for most people. It is a very expensive vaccine because each vaccine is customized for the patients own cells. USA Today predicts that the cost for the vaccine will be around $10,000 per month. Most families will not be able to afford this option, especially with the current recession.

This vaccine is a giant leap forward in the medical field, but until prices become substantially lower, it will be out of reach for most patients. Currently, the best and cheapest way to prevent prostate cancer is to get routine screenings so surgery/chemo can be performed before the disease gets out of hand. This way, advanced prostate cancer medications like the vaccine will not be necessary.

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