Prostate cancer | Prostate cancer vaccine
Prostate cancer | Prostate cancer vaccine . A "vaccine" which harnesses the body's own immune system to fight prostate cancer has been approved for use by US drug regulators. Provenge - which is designed to be used in men with advanced disease - is the first of its kind to be accepted by the Food and Drug Administration. Each dose has to be individually tailored and it is an expensive treatment at $93,000 per patient. It will add to, rather than replace, existing treatments, said experts. Doctors have been working on therapies that prompt the immune system to fight tumours for decades. Potential success stories include an experimental vaccine for melanoma which is in the late stages of development. This latest therapy is made by collecting special blood cells from each patient that help the immune system recognise cancer as a threat.These are then mixed with a protein found on most prostate cancer cells and a substance which kick-starts the immune response. Advanced disea...