Prostate Cancer could be 'wiped out' by new treatment

A new therapy that boosts the immune system could wipe advanced prostate cancer, early research suggests. In mice, human disease tumors were "almost completely destroyed" by the animals' own immune systems, scientists said.

The treatment, dubbed "chemoimmunotherapy", involved low doses of the drug Oxaliplatin which has a unique ability to activate cancer-killing immune cells. Equally important to the treatment was removing or blocking immune system cells that put a brake on the body's defences.

Each year in the UK around 41,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and 11,000 die from the disease. The immunosuppressive "B-cells" are especially abundant in the tumors of men who have advanced and spreading prostate cancer.

Such cells can render conventional therapies ineffective and allowing tumors to grow unchecked.
Because of immunosuppression, advanced and aggressive prostate cancer does not typically respond to chemotherapy. US lead scientist Dr Shabnam Shalapour, from the University of California at San Diego, said the new approach should now be tested clinically.
"This indicates that B-cell-mediated immunosuppression might be the reason several other cancers are also unresponsive to checkpoint inhibitors, raising the hope that chemoimmunotherapy will have broader applications for many cancer types."
Canadian research found prostate cancer sufferers treated with tiny radioactive implants are twice as likely to be cancer-free as those given conventional therapy after five years.