New clinical trial for prostate cancer

Doctors are looking for patients to take part in a new clinical trial (Phase IIb) that has started at the Royal Surrey County Hospital.  The trial is studying the effects of a new vaccine treatment called Onyvax-P.  The vaccine is being tested to see if it will slow down the spread of the disease.

Despite increasingly successful treatment of early prostate cancer, many men have disease that recurs. Hormone therapy is used to control recurrent disease, but eventually PSA levels start to rise again.  Rising PSA levels indicate that the cancer has begun to grow again.  Chemotherapies are available once the disease has spread to the bone. However, there are increasing numbers of men receiving hormone therapy whose PSA has begun to rise, but whose disease cannot yet be detected in the bone.  There are no treatment options for patients at this stage of disease.

If patients or doctors would like to find out more, please visit www.onyvax.com, email clinical.trial@surrey.ac.uk or call Angel Garcia on 01483 688572.

This week is Prostate Cancer Awareness Week, an annual health awareness campaign organised in the UK by The Prostate Cancer Charity.  In 2005 there were over 10,000 deaths in the UK from prostate cancer, making it the second most common cause of cancer death in men after lung cancer.