Prostate Cancer

• Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men, and the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men. The risk of developing prostate cancer rises sharply with age, so much so that prostate cancer is the leading cause of death for men over 75. Symptoms include difficulty urinating, pain with urination or ejaculation, and abnormal pain in the hips or lower back.
  
  

Prostate Cancer Treatments

• Current treatments for prostate cancer include the following: surgery, which is used to remove the prostate; chemotherapy, which consists of using poisonous drugs to shrink or destroy the tumor; and radiation therapy, which consists of using high-powered targeted radiation to render the cancerous cells unable to continue replicating. While all of these methods are effective, they leave something to be desired in the way of potential side effects.
  
  

Gene Therapy

• According to the National Cancer Institute, gene therapy is essentially nothing more than the injection of genetic material into a cancer patient. The injected material will act to modify a patient's genetic code, rendering his immune system more able to cope with the impending threat of prostate cancer or outright destroying the cancer cells. The genetic material is delivered to cells using carriers called "vectors," with genetically engineered viruses being the most common carriers.
  
  

Gene Therapy Research Status

• Gene therapy is currently not a viable method of treating prostate cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, scientists still have work to do on making the delivery of the genetic material more reliable and precise. As it stands, the current state of the art is such that it could not be guaranteed that the vectors would not infect normal cells as well as those that are cancerous.
  
  

Considerations

• While gene therapy is not a currently viable means of combating prostate cancer, that is not to say that it will not become one within the current generation. As the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is 100 percent and the 10-year survival rate is roughly 90 percent, it is possible that individuals diagnosed with prostate cancer today could survive to see the beginning of human trials for gene therapy.