The article is about the use of immunotherapy - using the body’s own immune system to tackle the cancer. This is interesting as immunotherapy has been used with other cancers with good results but not until now has it been found useful with prostate cancer - although the research has not been peer reviewed yet.
Prof Johann de Bono of the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust led the work. He says in The Guardian:
"Under the phase one clinical trial, funded by Vir Biotechnology, 58 men with advanced prostate cancer, and who had stopped responding to other treatments, were given VIR-5500. The researchers found the majority of patients – 88% – experienced only very mild side-effects. They then looked at the level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the men’s blood – a biomarker whereby higher levels can be a sign of prostate conditions.
"De Bono noted the trial started at low doses, with the dose increasing in stages. When the team looked at data for 17 men given the highest dose, they found that for 14 (82%) their PSA level fell by at least half after treatment, nine (53%) saw their PSA level fall by at least 90%, and five (29%) experienced a fall of at least 99%. De Bono described the results as unprecedented for a disease previously thought to be “immune-cold” – in other words resistant to immunotherapy. The team added that, of 11 patients given the highest dose and whose tumours were measurable, five showed tumour shrinkage. In one case, involving a 63-year-old man whose cancer had spread to his liver, the team found 14 cancerous liver lesions “completely resolved” after six cycles of treatment".
