Mayo Clinic Reports Dramatic Outcomes In Prostate Cancer Treatment

Zorglub writes "Two prostate cancer patients who had been told their condition was inoperable are now cancer-free as the result of an experimental therapy, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester announced Friday. 'Cancer has a propensity for turning off T cells. Dr. Allison hypothesized that if you block the off-switch, T cells will stay turned on and create a prolonged immune response. Dr. Kwon, then at NIH, demonstrated that CTLA-4 blockage could be used to treat aggressive forms of prostate cancer in mice. There was one limitation to that concept — the worry that by simply leaving all the T cells on there may not be enough response aimed at the tumor. Dr. Kwon called Dr. Allison and designed the trial together. The idea: use androgen ablation or hormone therapy to ignite an immune approach — a pilot light — and then, after a short interval of hormone therapy, introduce an anti-CTLA-4 antibody that acts like gasoline to this pilot light and overwhelms the cancer cells.' After the treatment, the patients' tumors shrunk to such a degree that they could be successfully removed."

Comments

This can't be

[hrvatska]

Everyone knows that advances in medical treatment can only come from profit motivated companies that can patent their treatment and then charge what the market will bear. It defies logic that an institution and its associated researchers would be motivated to advance knowledge and reduce suffering without being able to extract every last cent from desperate patients and their families.

Re:Hmmmm

[Hurricane78]

The real reason behind this, is that this process of division goes wrong more and more often, because the whole system is already that damaged, from the trash we call "food" and our environment full of unhealthy materials. Which adds up to our already very weak immune system.