Prostate Cancer

NEW YORK -- Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death among American males, but when caught early, prostate cancer has a 90% cure rate. According to Dr. David Samadi, Chief, Division of Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Urology, at Mount Sinai Medical Center, "The key to fighting prostate cancer is not to wait until there are warning signs, because by then it may be too late." The tendency of prostate cancer to grow without causing noticeable symptoms leads doctors to recommend that men over 50 get screened every year. However, Dr.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- The following statement was issued today by Diagnostic Center for Disease: "There is currently no convincing evidence that early screening, detection, and treatment improve mortality. Limitations in prostate cancer screening include potential adverse health effects associated with false-positive and negative results, and treatment side effects." Policy Statement from the American College of Preventive Medicine, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, February 2008 There were an estimated 50,000 robotic prostatectomies performed in 2007(1).

NEW YORK -- Using a breakthrough technology, researchers led by a Weill Cornell Medical College scientist have pinpointed the hormone estrogen as a key player in about half of all prostate cancers.Estrogen-linked signaling helps drive a discrete and aggressive form of the disease caused by a chromosomal translocation, which in turn results in the fusion of two genes. "Fifty percent of prostate cancers harbor a common recurrent gene fusion, and we believe that this confers a more aggressive nature to these tumors," explains study senior author Dr. Mark A.

Compendia Bioscience, Inc., the leading provider of cancer profiling data and analysis tools, announced the central role of their flagship product Oncomine(TM) in the discovery and identification of SPINK1 as a key new therapeutic target and biomarker for prostate cancer.Oncomine is a rapidly growing compendium of nearly 26,000 gene expression and DNA copy number arrays coupled with analysis functions and a web application for data mining and visualization.

BALTIMORE -- Men whose tumors recur after prostate cancer surgery are three times more likely to survive their disease long term if they undergo radiotherapy within two years of the recurrence. Surprisingly, survival benefits were best in men whose new tumors were growing fastest, according to results of a "look-back" study of 635 men by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions researchers reported June 18 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

BALTIMORE -- Men whose tumors recur after prostate cancer surgery are three times more likely to survive their disease long term if they undergo radiotherapy within two years of the recurrence. Surprisingly, survival benefits were best in men whose new tumors were growing fastest, according to results of a "look-back" study of 635 men by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions researchers reported June 18 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia have shown that by blocking a signaling protein, they can prevent prostate cancer cells from metastatic dissemination. The work opens the door to future studies examining the protein as a target for therapies aimed at keeping prostate cancer at bay.

The benefits of eating right and staying active may extend well beyond your physique, all the way down to your genes, Bay Area scientists have found. Men with low-risk prostate cancer were able to change the activity of genes that affect tumor growth with diet and exercise, which could potentially reduce the risk of the cancer progressing. "So often people say, 'It's all in my genes, what can I do?' Well, it turns out we can do a lot, and faster than we thought," said Dean Ornish of UC San Francisco, lead author of the study.

Bavarian Nordic's subsidiary, BN ImmunoTherapeutics has initiated Phase I/II clinical studies with its therapeutic vaccine candidate against prostate cancer. A Phase I/II safety and tolerability study in 18 male patients with non-metastatic as well as hormone-insensitive prostate cancer has begun enrolment in the US. Secondary objectives of the trial include examining the ability of the vaccine to induce prostate antigen-specific immune responses, as well as clinical anti-tumour activity. Preliminary data is expected during second half year 2009.

New cancer research from the University of Missouri suggests that eating a certain form of tomato product could be the key to unlocking the prostate cancer-fighting potential of the tomato. The positive effect of tomato products has been suggested in many studies, but, until now, researchers did not know exactly what caused this effect. "It appears that the greatest protective effect from tomatoes comes from rehydrating tomato powder into tomato paste," said Valeri Mossine, research assistant professor of biochemistry in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.