The vaccine is either injected under the skin, along with a compound known to stimulate the immune system, or delivered intravenously, after being loaded onto dendritic cells. A type of white blood cell, dendritic cells activate the immune system by scavenging antigens, like PSA, and presenting them to T-cells, one of the body's most important defense mechanisms.
All patients will continue their regular treatment while participating in the trial.
For purposes of the study, the vaccine was designed to work in patients with a specific immune type, found in about 50 percent of individuals in the United States. However, Peace's laboratory is developing similar PSA vaccines for patients with other immune types.
"The advantage of these kinds of vaccines is that they can be customized to each patient, based on his immune type. The specificity of the vaccine enables the immune system to target the tumor cells with exquisite precision, with minimal risk of damage to the body's normal tissues," Peace said.
According to Peace, the vaccine also holds promise as a treatment for types of breast cancers whose cells express PSA.
Next to skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common malignant cancer in North American men. It is now the second leading cause of cancer death in men, exceeded only by lung cancer. An estimated 198,100 males developed prostate cancer in the United States last year, and 31,500 died from the disease.
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Contact: Sharon Butler
sbutler@uic.edu
312-355-2522
University of Illinois at Chicago
21-Apr-2002