Four Experts Recommend the Earlier Use of Provenge in Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

In  the last few years, several new therapeutic agents have been approved for treating various aspects of prostate cancer.  Now research also needs to focus on the timely utilization of these agents either individually or in combination and at which stages of disease should they best be applied.  Provenge® (sipuleucel-T) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010 for metastatic prostate cancer patients who were hormone-resistant (refractory) and who had little or no pain. Provenge® is an immunotherapy uniquely administered over several weeks and generally acts by “kick starting” the immune system while not attacking cancer cells directly.  This website has described Provenge® in several posts over the past years.  The question of when in the course of prostate cancer treatment should Provenge® optimally be administered is currently under much discussion.  A recent series of video and e mail comments from four prominent prostate cancer physicians propose that Provenge® should be used at an early stage in the treatment of metastatic cancer.  The videos and comments are linked in this post.  The physicians cited are Dr. Charles Myers (himself a prostate cancer survivor), Dr. Charles Drake from Johns Hopkins, Dr. David Crawford from the University of Colorado, and Dr. Leonard Gomella from the Jefferson Kimmel Cancer Center.  The reader is urged to share this information with one’s physician as much of it is medical in nature.  But it raises some interesting points for discussion and possible incorporation into a treatment regimen as directed by one’s individual physician.