Doctors diagnosed Bud Dougherty with advanced prostate cancer. After surgery and radiation, he helped test a new vaccine.
"We are not talking about vaccines in the sense of preventing a virus like polio, but we are talking about therapeutic vaccines that treat cancer by revving up the immune system, in some way, to try to fight the cancer," said Dr. Philip Kantoff, Chief Clinical Research Officer, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
The approach is extending lives. In three-year study, 30 percent of patients who got the vaccine were alive -- versus 17 percent who got a placebo shot. A second prostate cancer vaccine, made from a patient's own cells, is now FDA - approved. It improved three-year survival by 38 percent. Doctors say that's significant because men with advanced disease typically live less than two years.
"There is nothing negative, nothing negative. In all cases, it helped me," said Dougherty.
Side effects can include fevers, chills and nausea.
Dougherty is doing well.
"I want to be a part of something that works and so people will not die at younger ages and can benefit from it," he said.
The manufacturer of the FDA-approved vaccine is charging $93,000 for the treatment. It is covered by insurance, but doctors worry it could raise out-of-pocket costs. A recent study found nearly 30 percent of cancer patients with $500 or more a year in out-of -pocket costs stopped filling their prescriptions.
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