Chemotherapy used to be the only option for people with advanced kidney cancer, the chemicals attacking the cancer cells along with the body’s healthy cells. A more targeted therapy was designed to zero in on the cancer cells, but its long-term results are not great.
“It was an improvement over chemotherapy, but it certainly had its own limitations,” says Gennady Bratslavsky, MD, who chairs Upstate’s Urology Department and directs the Prostate Cancer Program.
He leads a trial at Upstate that offers patients a vaccine made just for them, designed to enlist their bodies’ immune systems in the cancer fight. “The theory is that if we were to train the body’s own immune system to recognize the cancerous cells, we could get a much more effective killing of the cancer cells,” he says.
Listen: Dr. Bratslavsky explains the trial
Learn more by calling Upstate Urology at 315-464-1500.
Gennady Bratslavsky, MD
Listen: Dr. Bratslavsky explains the trial
Read: What’s new in kidney cancer research
Contact: Upstate Urology
