Systemic treatment of patients with metastatic prostate cancer is mainly based on hormone therapy to inhibit testosterone production and activity in the body, but nearly all patients develop drug resistance within 12- 18 months. Median survival rate in patients with hormone-resistant prostate cancer is limited to 6–8 months, and standard treatment of such patients is usually palliative and unable to prolong survival. Recently, a lot of attention has been focused on immunotherapy-based approaches to treatment of prostate cancer, which engages patient’s immune system to combat and destroy cancer cells.
Our clinical experience suggests that cell vaccination of patients with stage IV prostate cancer can achieve various degrees of clinical responses (complete or partial response, disease stabilization) of more than 6 months’ duration in a significant proportion of vaccinees . Although the results obtained here are very encouraging, they must be considered as preliminary because they are based on a small number of patients with very advanced disease.
Related scientific publications:
- Immunotherapy as a Promising Treatment for Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review.
Janiczek M, Szylberg Ł, Kasperska A, Kowalewski A, Parol M, Antosik P, Radecka B, Marszałek A. J Immunol Res. 2017;2017:4861570. doi: 10.1155/2017/4861570. Epub 2017 Oct 3. Review.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29109964 - Overcoming Oncogenic Mediated Tumor Immunity in Prostate Cancer.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27749327 - A Perspective of Immunotherapy for Prostate Cancer.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27399780 - Inducible expression of cancer-testis antigens in human prostate cancer.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27769045