Can advanced prostate cancer be cured?
Currently, no cure exists for advanced prostate cancer. Men can benefit, however, in several ways. Some treatments slow the growth of the cancer. Others reduce symptoms caused by the disease. Until recently, no therapy was offered to prolong life. However, the recently approved chemotherapy drug Taxotere, when taken with the steroid prednisone, has been proven to extend survival by several months. Taxotere is approved only for men with cancer that no longer responds to hormone therapy (called hormone refractory prostate cancer). In addition, Provenge, a “vaccine” for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer, does appear to extend survival — by months for most patients, by years for some. Provenge isn’t your everyday vaccine. It’s an immune therapy created by harvesting immune cells from a patient, genetically engineering them to fight prostate cancer, and then infusing them back into the patient. It’s approved only for treatment of patients with few or no symptoms who have prostate c
