Prostate cancer cured in mice: Are humans next?
This is an excellent follow up article from yesterday's news.
There is still a lot of work to do, but this is clearly exciting news!
- (CBS) There's still no cure for prostate cancer, but scientists may be closing in on one. They say they've developed a vaccine that destroys even advanced prostate tumors without any side effects.
- By using DNA from healthy prostate cells, the researchers created a vaccine that tricks the immune system to think existing tumors are antigens - like an invading flu virus, for example - thus triggering its antibodies to destroy the tumors.
- In mice, 80 percent of prostate cancer cells were destroyed without harming healthy tissue, the Daily Mail reported.
- How far off is a human version of the vaccine cure? Study author Dr. Richard Vile, professor of immunology at the Mayo Clinic, told HealthDay it might take "three to five years." He said more research was needed to clear some FDA hurdles.
Smokers face higher prostate cancer risk
- Smokers who are diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to have aggressive tumors and face a higher death risk from the disease than non-smokers.
- Men who smoked at the time of diagnosis faced 61 percent higher risk of dying from prostate cancer and a 61 percent higher chance that the cancer would come back compared to men who never smoked, said researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and University of California, San Francisco.
- “For smokers, quitting can impact their risk of dying from prostate cancer. This is another reason to not smoke.”
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