Breakthrough In Prostate Cancer Treatment - New Prostate Cancer Vaccine
prostate cancer
A new drug was discovered that proved to be very effective in stimulating the body’s own immune system to fight prostate cancer in cases when the tumor was wide spread beyond the possibility of surgical intervention and became resistant to hormonal treatment or chemotherapy. The new drug is MDX-010, an antibody which builds on the action of the hormone.
In an experimental treatment on two prostate cancer patients where the patient’s tumor have spread beyond the prostate gland, MDX-010 (also know as Ipilimumab drug) was administrated. The experimental therapy used MDX-010 as standardized hormone treatment together with radiation therapy. As a result, the patient’s specific prostate antigen shrank lower enough to be surgically removed. After a few weeks from the treatment the tumor could not be seen with Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
The real surprise came when urologist and surgeon, Dr Kwon and Dr Michael Blute decide to operate their patients. They were shocked to learn that the results were far beyond what they had expected. In a statement, Dr Michael Blute said that he had difficulty trying to locate the cancer because the tumors had shrunk so dramatically. He added that he had never he had never seen anything like this in his whole career. After one and a half year, both patients are cancer free and no longer need any therapy.
In order to find out the efficiency of the treatment, more studies had been conducted. It seems that the immune system can be influenced by blocking a complex set of interactions so that it can provoke a regression of the cancer cells, causing the tumor to shrink significantly, so that surgical intervention became possible. The immune system plays a role in detecting and eliminating altered cells by generating T-cells that destroy foreign objects. Some cancer cells can dial down the strength of the response of the immune system and allow tumor to grow. The mechanism of down regulation of the immune system involves the molecule CTLA-4, which appears on the surface of the T-cells as a normal regulatory mechanism that is supposed to protect the human body from immune system overreaction. MDX-010, also known as Ipilimumab, is a human antibody against human CTL-4, the molecule on T cells that suppresses the immune response.
More studies are made to investigate the potential of MDX-010 in regulating the immune system help suppress tumor growth in other types of cancer. Other research is made to determine the possibility of increasing the effect of the treatments when Ipilimumab is used in combination with other types of chemicals.