Vaccine Injection Targeted in Building a Better 'Bull's-Eye' to
Fight Prostate Cancer
15 June 2010
The Cancer Institute of New Jersey
Looking to harness the body's own immune system to target
prostate cancer that has spread to the bones (metastatic) and is
unresponsive to standard treatment, investigators at The Cancer
Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) have just launched a clinical trial
focusing on a combination of vaccine and radiation drug
therapy. The goal is to see if disease progression will be
further delayed by adding two different experimental injections to
the standard treatment. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
A standard treatment for prostate cancer that has spread to the
bones is with a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration
known as samarium153. It contains material that gives off a
tiny amount of energy (radiation) that damages cancer cells.
And because radiation drugs such as samarium153 also can increase
the immune system's ability to find and kill cancer cells, CINJ
researchers want to combine this treatment with a series of
vaccination injections aimed at helping the body's natural defenses
work better.
At focus are two different experimental vaccines.
PROSTVAC-V/TRICOM has a special virus added to it that produces a
prostate specific antigen (PSA) protein which helps focus the
body's immune response to the PSA in the prostate tumor. Other
human genetic material added to this vaccine produces three other
proteins that help increase an immune cell's ability to destroy its
target. The second vaccine, PROSTVAC-F, contains the same
genetic material as PROSTAC-V, but will be given more frequently to
boost the body's immune system. Previous studies led by CINJ
Director Robert S. DiPaola, MD, professor of medicine at
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, have shown that giving
the PROSTVAC-V vaccine followed a short time later by booster
injections with PROSTVAC-F is more effective in increasing immune
response than receiving one vaccine alone.
Full article
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