Prostate Cancer New Treatment Option: Dendreon Provenge Vaccine – www.dendreon.com
Provenge Vaccine is new treatment option for prostate cancer approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 29, 2010. Provenge vaccine (sipuleucel-T) was researched and developed by Dendreon Corporation, a biotechnology company specializing in developing therapeutic cancer treatments. Dendreon Corporation is a US-based biotech company, physically located in Seattle, Washington. You can find detailed information of Dendreon corporation background, products and ongoing research projects at www.dendreon.com, their official website.
The mechanism of Provenge
Provenge is designed to stimulate patients’ own immune system and increase their function in getting rid of cancerous prostate cells. How does Provenge work? Provenge is a vaccine which helps the patients’ immune system to recognize the prostate cancer cells better. It works by providing more prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) activated antigen presenting cells (APCs). PAP is a prostate cancer cell specific protein, which doesn’t exist on normal prostate cells.
How to produce Provenge Vaccine products
In order to produce the Provenge vaccine, doctors will take patients’ peripheral blood mononuclear cells by a standard procedure called Leukapheresis,and co-culture the blood cells with recombinant human proteins, specifically the protein PAP-GM-CSF. After several days of in vitro culture, autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells, the active component of the Provenge product, will be produced. GM-CSF stands for granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor which can help to activate the immune cells. The autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells contain a large amount of PAP-activated APCs, which plays a major role in stimulating the patients’ immune system. Because of the nature of the production procedure, and due to the fact that this is a biological process with intrinsic variability depending on the viability of the patient’s own APCs, the quality of the final vaccine product is not 100% predictable, and batch to batch variation with even a single patient may occur. (See Provenge Full Prescribing Information for details. You can download it at Dendreon.com).
Not all the prostate cancer patients can be treated with Provenge Vaccine.
Dendreon Provenge Vaccine is a new prostate cancer cure but it is not an option for all prostate cancer patients. Provenge Vaccine products are only suitable for treating asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic, and castrate resistant prostate cancer. Provenge vaccine prostate cancer treatment may also be complicated by other conditions such as chemotherapy and application of immunosuppressive agents. If you want to learn more on Prostate Cancer New Treatment Option: Dendreon Provenge Vaccine, you should visit www.dendreon.com, the Dendreon Corporation website or consult your doctor for details.
Resources:
Provenge Full Prescribing Information from www.dendreon.com