Next in line

[Peterd110]

Now that Prostar trial is over, looks like I’ll be going on Provenge. I asked if I could do Provenge and Xofigo together and he said no. He still pushes for that first instead of docetaxel. I asked him if we could do xofigo directly after the Provenge and he seemed agreeable to that. Thinking of the recommendation that Tall Allen made suggesting that the combo may work better than either alone

[Patrick-Turner]

Yeah, I saw what Tall Allen wrote but maybe Zofigo has big effect on white cells and you need to keep them OK because Provenge takes out white cells, modifies them, puts then back in, and with luck they then attack Pca cells. But mean time for Provenge to work is only 4months, and I suspect it is because the white cells that combat Pca do not reproduce so new white cells don't inherit Pca fighting ability. But I had an email about 3 years ago from a man who had Provenge soon after it was approved more than 10 years about and he said he's had very low Psa ever since, so he got far more than 4 months betterment. I guess his white cells passed on their Pca ability in new generations.

This is how Immune Therapy should work, and our immune system can't see cancer as rogue cells, so cancer grows unopposed. Many things that we are exposed to in life, viruses and bacteria , alter IS to make it ready to fight these things and in some ppl they would not know they had some cancers because IS learned to see that cancer and fight it. But many cancers are able to hide from being seen by IS. Much research is being done on all this. Marsden Hospital in UK keeps trying, and last I heard they had some fabulous cases of Pca remissions, but in other cases the side effects of IT were dreadful because altered white cells went after healthy parts of the body.

There was only about 15% of good outcomes, and until they get very low % of side effects and bigger % of success, IT research may just stall, and they would not get it approved.

The complexity of organic chemistry involved is quite mind boggling.

Patrick Turner.

[SeosamhM in reply to Patrick-Turner]

Completely agree with PT, Peterd110. Provenge relies on as robust a t-cell count as we can muster, as only a fraction of t-cells taken from us get successfully modified to target cancer cells. Chemo - whether standard or radio - knocks down everything to one degree or another. I was about 8 months past chemo before I started the Provenge process. Good luck. - Joe M.

[Peterd110 in reply to SeosamhM]

Thank you, Joe! Wonder what a flu shot beforehand would do beforehand?

[SeosamhM in reply to Peterd110]

Well, first, PT is spot on with the "mind boggling" comment. There is only the most general of blueprints for the amazing machine of our immune system - we think we know what everything does, and we certainly tinker around, but we don't know all the feedback loops, etc.

With your flu shot scenario, it shouldn't interfere with Provenge. T-cells are recruited from a "resting" state and programmed to lock on to a specific molecular complex identified as "NOT US", e.g., a virus. With Provenge, resting T-cells (and we should have many, many of these) are recruited to respond to the "PAP" (Prostatic acid phosphatase) molecular complex and destroy the cell associated with it. Once a T-cell is recruited, it never rests, the body makes more and - theoretically - the body should keep these buggers around to fight future appearances of cells expressing PAP.

As remarkable as this is - and it IS remarkable - we don't know exactly how this works in a specific individual. We only know that, statistically, the Provenge treatment does extend the lives of us APCa-ers.

The SARS-Cov-2 virus has highlighted scientific limitations in basic immunology. I actually expect great things to come out of this frenzy of research that we may yet see help in our own fight! - Joe M.

[Peterd110 in reply to Patrick-Turner]

Thank you for your thoughts, Patrick!