So, I originally planned to make my first blog entry be an extensive, long-winded diatribe on a subject that would awaken the mind and arouse the senses, however, this isn't a blog about coffee and a truly historic event in vaccine biology occurred today. I'm pretty sure I'd be stripped of my vaccinologist (yes its a word, look it up) card if I didn't mention it. What was this amazing discovery you ask? Well, the FDA approved the first vaccine for fighting a human cancer. Specifically, the vaccine licensed as Provenge by Dendreon, is approved for the treatment of advance prostate cancer. Now ladies don't get to jealous or run out and try and get yourself your own prostate, you still have the best preventative anti-cancer vaccine out there (go HPV vaccine)...and men, don't get to excited. While this is a huge step forward toward cancer treatment, Provenge is only modestly effective at treating prostate cancer, extending life expectancy by an average of 4 months for patients that failed to respond to more traditional treatments. Downer aside, this is a huge push forward in the idea of individualized vaccines for treatment of cancer and hopefully marks the beginning of a wave of new cancer treatments that utilize the host immune response to control this awful disease. For more information about the vaccine, CNN has a decent article up ...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/27/provenge.prostate.cancer.fda/index.html?hpt=T2
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment