Treatment of prostate cancer: therapeutic potential of targeted immunotherapy with APC8015

Review

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Author: Robert A Bok

Published Date March 2008 Volume 2008:4(1) Pages 79 - 85

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/TCRM.S905

Robert A Bok

Department of Radiology, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

Abstract: The body’s immune system has some capacity to recognize and attack cancerous growths, including prostate cancer. However, various intrinsic characteristics of tumor cells usually limit that capacity. Therapeutically administered immunologic stimuli, such as APC8015, an individualized, ex vivo stimulation of a patient’s own antigen presenting cells (APC), are capable of boosting the anti-tumor response. Late phase clinical trials of APC8015 (now also called Sipuleucel-T) show evidence of slowing disease progression and increasing survival in advanced prostate cancer. Such immunotherapeutic approaches hold real promise to provide additional useful and welcome weapons against this common malignancy.

Keywords: prostate cancer, antigen presenting cells, immunologics