Putting Provenge in perspective.

摘要

As a clinician and researcher in the prostate cancer field, I have been hearing that prostate cancer is “20 years behind” breast cancer now for the last 25 years! Who would have thought that poor ol’ prostate cancer would have an FDA-approved immunotherapy before breast cancer—and in fact, before any cancer![1] Furthermore, as a urologist, I am proud that a urologist is at the heart and soul of this advance, serving as the CEO of Dendreon, the company that has developed and commercialized sipuleucel-T (Provenge). Much has been written about sipuleucel-T over the last decade—and particularly over the last several years, since it was initially rebuffed by the FDA and then approved in May 2010.[2-5] Drs. Garcia and Dreicer have done an outstanding job of describing the development of sipuleucel-T, the other vaccines/immunotherapy approaches that have been developed for use in advanced prostate cancer, and the phase III results of the pivotal IMPACT trial that resulted in FDA approval for sipuleucel-T.