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VACCINES FOR PROSTATE CANCER There are at least 2 therapeutic vaccines in the product pipeline that merit watching. The one below, Provenge, appears furthest along. The other, GVAX, is made by Cell Genesys and is starting on Phase III clinical trials. Dendritic Cell Vaccines - Dendreon's Provenge - a first person account of participating in the phase III trial. Dendreon's website can be checked for current status of Provenge as well as any open clinical trials. As of November 7, 2005 Dendreon has been granted "Fast Track Status" by the US FDA. This is for asymptomatic, metastatic androgen independent prostate cancer patients. Just when it will be available isn't known. As it turned out, this patient had received the placebo, so data from bone scans do not reflect how the Provenge vaccine might have worked for him. Click on the link above to find out about the supplemental trial offered to those who received the placebo. One aspect of clinical trials that is seldom reported is what happens to the patient once the trial is concluded. In this case, the patient started on a treatment that he had previously successfully used. Read about "Since Provenge" for an update to 6/10/2004. Jack has again provided an even more recent update dated 5/18/2005, Since Provenge part II. A phase III trial of Provenge for asymptomatic hrpca patients was recently presented at ASCO 2005. The reference below includes a link to the abstract. it was a fairly small trial with only 127 patients split between the vaccine(82) and the placebo(45). See the abstract for the results. References J. Clin Oncol (Meeting Abstracts) 2005 23: 4500.
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