Medicare may cover exspensive prostate cancer vaccine: Provenge

In April Provenge, a therapeutic vaccine, was approved for treatment for prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. It is the first therapeutic cancer vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA after clinical trials showed it added, on average, four months to recipients’ life expectancy.

There have been many concerns surrounding Provenge, including its high cost, relatively short improvement in life expectancy and a limited supply for the next six months, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, are going to review the drug on Wednesday.

The Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee voted that it had “intermediate confidence’’ in the strength of the data that the drug, developed by Dendreon, improves survival.

An advisory panel is expected to vote on whether there is adequate evidence that Provenge extends life, a ruling that may lead the agency to pay for the drug,

A study published in July in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the vaccine extended the lives of men with metastatic tumors resistant to standard hormonal treatment, compared with no treatment. And the therapy involved less toxicity than chemotherapy.

Nineteen of 20 patients showed an improvement in the scans used to determine whether cancer has spread to the bone. In some cases, the bone scans could no longer detect any cancer, and the men were able to stop taking the narcotics they were using to control bone pain.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin malignancy in men and is responsible for more deaths than any other cancer, except for lung cancer. There are often no early prostate cancer symptoms, but some men have urinary symptoms and discomfort.