- Text
Katie Couric's Notebook: Cancer Vaccine
Dendreon's Provenge vaccine harnesses the body's own immune cells to battle tumors, a new tool alongside surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
After decades of research in this area, it's the first vaccine approved to treat cancer. Others, including a melanoma vaccine, may follow.
Yet these new treatments raise questions as well. Provenge only adds about four months to the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer. And it costs a whopping $93,000 a patient.
That's one set of numbers. But consider these: Over 11 million Americans have cancer and more than half a million will die of it this year alone - roughly one person every minute.
The success of Provenge opens the door to bigger and better discoveries... and that really is news worth celebrating.
That's a page from my notebook.
I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.
- Evening News Online, 02.11.12
- Catholic votes and the Obama contraceptive quarrel
- Making the 1st ever US women's Olympic boxing team
- Ohio unemployment hits 3-year-low
- Who's really winning the 2012 GOP race?
- Mitt Romney wins Maine GOP caucuses
- In focus: The crisis in Syria
- Syrian forces launch new round of deadly attacks
- Some glimmer of hope in Ohio employment
- Boxing her way into history
- Evening News Online, 02.10.12
- Diplomat: U.S. military not the answer in Syria
- On the Road: Noah's Dream Catcher Network
- Salvaging the Costa Concordia
- Bank deal won't protect federal mortgages
- Ambassador Ford on military help in Syria
- Rare moment of relief in Syria
- A surreal scene at Beverly Hilton hotel
- Al-Qaida executes 2 Yemenis suspected of US links
- France's far-right leader attempts image change
- Hamas strongman in Gaza rejects unity deal
on Facebook
- Whitney Houston 1963-2012
- Adele sings a cappella for Anderson Cooper
- Remembering Whitney Houston 1963-2012
on CBS News
