At the present time the development of vaccines for prostate cancer is at the research stage. Some limited clinical trials of vaccines are under way but these are mainly looking at the safety of the vaccines and finding out whether they have any effect. So for the moment vaccine therapy is certainly not a routine part of the treatment of prostate cancer.

The cells in the prostate gland produce a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA). When prostate cells become cancerous they usually produce larger amounts of PSA than normal (causing an increase of the PSA level in the blood which can be measured by a simple blood test). There are also changes on the outer lining or cell membrane of cancerous prostate cells where PSA forms as something called prostate-specific membrane antigen.

Most of the vaccines under development for prostate cancer are targeted against prostate specific membrane antigen. The hope is that these vaccines will boost the patient's own immune system so that it recognises the cells carrying the antigen and destroys them.

For the moment, however, this remains a hope rather than a reality and the treatment is still at an early and experimental stage and there is no sure evidence that it will work.