 www.humc.com
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October 13, 2000
NEW CANCER VACCINE CLINICAL TRIAL AVAILABLE AT HACKENSAACK UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER FOR THOSE FACING PROSTATE CANCER
Patients battling hormone refractory prostate cancer who have already undergone standard hormonal ablation can now be part of a phase III clinical trial to test a new experimental, therapeutic cancer vaccine. Clinical investigators at Hackensack University Medical Center are offering the trial.
- Potential participants must have the following symptoms:
- Rising PSA
- Hormone-resistant prostate cancer
- Cancer that has spread outside the prostate, and
- No cancer-related pain
"This trial is looking at the ability of a drug - APC8015 - to stimulate the patient's own immunity to cancer," said Andrew Pecora, M.D. of Ridgewood, medical director of oncology/hematology at Hackensack University Medical Center. "This immunotherapy approach represents a new wave of cancer treatment that uses cells already found in the body to fight the disease."
During the trial, a patient's own blood cells called dendritic cells are removed form the blood, altered in a laboratory by APC8015, and then reinfused back into the patient to stimulate an immune response.
In a previous clinical trial 80 men with prostate cancer that is resistant to hormone therapy were treated with APC8015 with 80 percent of those men having no side effects from the treatment. Furthermore the drug stimulated immunity to the prostate antigen in patients tested. If you think you or someone you know qualifies for the study please call Laura Kudlacik at Hackensack University Medical Center at (201) 996-5917.
Hackensack University Medical Center
30 Prospect Avenue · Hackensack, New Jersey, 07601 · (201) 996-2000