The Prostate Project - Offering care and support to prostate cancer sufferers, their families and friends Offering care and support to prostate cancer sufferers, their families and friends
Spring 2006 Edition
 

Massive boost to Prostate Project Foundation Funds

Prof. Hardev Pandha (bottom left) and his Prostate Project Foundation team
Prof. Hardev Pandha (bottom left) and his Prostate Project Foundation team

Thanks to a huge donation from a new benefactor, Prof. Hardev Pandha and his Prostate Project Foundation research team will be able to commence clinical trials of a new treatment for prostate cancer months earlier than expected.

Prof. Pandha’s post as Chair of Urological Oncology at the University of Surrey Postgraduate Medical School is largely funded by The Prostate Project. He is the first Chair in the UK with a special interest in prostate cancer and he has brought several members of his research team from St George’s Hospital with him.

Professor Pandha will be leading a wide-ranging, and much needed, collaborative clinical and scientific research programme into prostate cancer. The aim of the research is to develop new strategies for the treatment of all stages of prostate cancer and to gain further insights into developing the treatment of locally advanced prostate cancer. A clinical trial portfolio will be developed to encompass patients at all stages of prostate cancer.

While he was at St George’s Professor Pandha developed a non-toxic vaccine for prostate cancer. This is a novel idea which no one else is in the UK is developing, although a similar strategy is being evaluated in malignant melanoma. Professor Pandha is also an investigator in this trial, which he is bringing to Surrey. The vaccine will provide a non-toxic approach, without any side effects, to controlling and potentially eliminating early progressive prostate cancer after hormone therapy fails.

To develop the vaccine blood is taken from the patient and monocyte white cells isolated. These cells are transformed into powerful immune cells, dendritic cells, in the test tube by the addition of certain growth factors. The dendritic cells are then processed and frozen and stored in vaccine doses. Before treatment the doses are thawed and then injected into the patient on a monthly basis for 6 months.

The modified dendritic cells migrate to the parts of immune system, particularly the lymph nodes, which are most likely to provide a powerful and sustained stimulus for the production of T cells which can then circulate and attack and destroy prostate cancer cells. In the UK no academic group outside St George’s has managed to make a suitable prototype vaccine and Dr Pandha’s team are the only group worldwide that have done dendritic cell work, completed it and had papers published on this work. A pilot study of 15 patients showed clear evidence of anti-tumour effects without toxicity to the patient.

Prof Pandha hopes to start a full clinical trial of the vaccine with 50 patients. The cost of the clinical trial will be around £250,000 and so far we have raised £185,600. Chemotherapy costs between £16,000 and £20,000 for 6 months treatment for one patient. At £250,000 for the clinical trial, the vaccine will cost £5,000 per patient so not only is it non-toxic, it is also much cheaper!