It is common knowledge that the host can make anti-tumor immune responses, although often these are ineffective in causing tumor regression. Boosting these responses with immunotherapy is therefore an attractive, relatively benign adjunctive cancer treatment. Little is known in regards to how standard anti-cancer therapies like radiation therapy might interact with immunotherapy in a clinical setting. We are interested in knowing if the tumor cell death occasioned by radiation therapy might augment anti-tumor responses from the immune therapy, Provenge.
The tentative assumption is that cell death following radiation therapy will stimulate anti-tumor immunity, which could provide a more permanent solution to curing cancer and discouraging tumors from spreading throughout the body. In order to find out if this assumption is correct, for patients undergoing radiation 28 days prior to Provenge, highly developed, laboratory analyses for tumor-specific immunity and imaging will be performed.
