US government approves prostate cancer treatment vaccine

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new 'cancer vaccine' for treating men with advanced prostate cancer.

Provenge (sipuleucel-T) has been approved for prostate cancer patients with few or no symptoms whose disease has spread to other parts of the body and who are not responding to hormone treatment.

It is a new type of treatment called immunotherapy, which stimulates the patient's own immune system to fight the cancer.