Targeted Nanoparticles Destroy Prostate Tumors

Biodegradable polymer nanoparticles, linked to a protein-binding nucleic acid known as an aptamer and loaded with the anticancer agent docetaxel, can target and kill prostate tumors growing in mice. Using this targeted nanoparticle to deliver docetaxel appears to reduce the toxic side effects associated with this drug.
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Docetaxel Plus Vaccine Extends Progression-Free Survival Rates In Prostate Cancer Patients

Docetaxel has activity against androgen-insensitive prostate cancer (AIPC). Arlen et al. designed a randomized Phase II study in AIPC patients to compare a prostate-specific antigen vector–based vaccine vs. vaccine plus docetaxel.

Patients in the vaccine alone arm were allowed to receive docetaxel at progression.

Median progression-free survival rates on docetaxel was 6.1 months after crossover from vaccine vs. 3.7 months with the same drug regimen and patient population in a previous trial. Larger prospective studies will be required to validate these findings.

This was the first study to show that patients in both arms (vaccine ± docetaxel) developed equal T-cell responses to prostate-specific antigen showing that docetaxel (with steroid) did not inhibit immune responses.
source: February 15 Clinical Cancer Research Highlights | American Association for Cancer Research

Thalidomide is making a subsidized comeback in Australia to treat multiple myeloma. In the USA thalidomide is already available to treat prostate cancer. It has not been too effective on its own. Giving it in combination with other chemotherapy may increase side effects. But a team of oncologists has found that giving a blood-thinner to prevent clots from thalidomide plus taxane chemotherapy “could provide a therapeutic and survival advantage for patients….”
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Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.co.uk
Body backs Sanofi’s Taxotere in prostate cancer

LONDON (Reuters) - A cost-effectiveness watchdog said on Friday it was provisionally recommending that Sanofi-Aventis SA’s chemotherapy drug Taxotere should be used to treat prostate cancer on the state health service.

A spokesman for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence said final guidance was likely to be issued around July next year, covering the use of the drug in men with advanced hormone refractory prostate cancer.

Until then, about 800 men in Scotland who could benefit from Taxoterer to releive pain and progression of advanced prostate cancer are on hold. Some of them may die waiting.
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Our friend in Israel, Lenny Hirsch, has been fighting a lonely battle to try to get the health plan in his country to provide men with advanced prostate cancer a chance to receive Taxotere (docetaxel). Taxotere is the only chemotherapy drug so far proven to extend the lives of men with advanced metastatic prostate cancer. In Israel and in some European countries many men are not diagnosed until the disease has already spread outside the prostate — and then, as Lenny describes in his article “Sad Day,” they are not even able to receive chemotherapy.

Well, it’s no better in Scotland. Prostate cancer affects one in 15 men in Scotland. It is the UK’s most common form of male cancer and in the UK it has a much higher death rate than in the USA. It affects more than 30,000 UK men each year, killing 10,000 - at least one per hour. Now men in Scotland suffering from advanced prostate cancer have been told they cannot receive Taxotere.

“Men in Scotland with prostate cancer will not receive a life-prolonging drug on the NHS because it is too expensive,” BBC reports. They mean Taxotere.
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