Prostate Surgery Center

SARASOTA, Fla., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ — JM, a 71 year old business
executive from Tennessee, had a negative biopsy using gray scale ultrasound
despite a PSA of 7.1. The following year, the PSA rose to 11.5 prompting a
second biopsy that was negative despite adding Color Flow Doppler
Ultrasound.

At this point, the patient and all doctors in attendance were
frustrated without a clear path to identify a disease process that was
begging to be discovered. JM came to the Diagnostic Center for Disease in
Sarasota, Florida, as he had heard about an exciting new scan offered that
promised to solve his personal dilemma while erasing his fear of the
unknown.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071105/CLM095 )

Presently, a new case of Prostate cancer is diagnosed every 3 minutes
while 90 men die from prostate cancer every day. Prostate Biopsy, the “gold
standard” for finding cancer of the prostate is associated with trauma,
infection, bleeding and sampling bias. National statistics show that 10 men
must undergo an ultrasound and biopsy to find 2-3 cancers. Translated
another way, 7-8 men must undergo a procedure that is unnecessary as
documented by a negative biopsy. Moreover, it is well known that a biopsy
of the prostate is associated with the possibility that cancer cells, if
encountered, may be carried outside of the prostate capsule through a
phenomenon called, “needle tracking”. Data from Pathologists show that this
phenomenon is real. The problem is compounded when it is realized that
prostate cancer is not just a disease of older men as originally thought
but rather a disease of young men as well. In fact, data from the Detroit
Autopsy Study and Memorial Sloan- Kettering shows 30% of 30 year old men
have prostate cancer.

Given the inability to diagnose prostate cancer using the traditional
system, our attention has turned to imaging to determine the presence or
absence of prostate cancer. Currently data, primarily from Europe, suggests
that prostate cancer detection with MRI-Spectroscopy (MRI-S) has a
sensitivity and specificity in the range of 89-92%. In fact, Peter
Scardino, M.D., Chairman of the Departments of Urology and Surgery at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering has called MRI-S with the 3.0 Tesla magnet, “the
next greatest diagnostic tool for prostate cancer detection”. The
Diagnostic Center for Disease, led by Urologist, Ronald E. Wheeler, M.D.,
is using this new imaging technology to assist in finding prostate cancer
in patients like JM where traditional biopsies continue to miss the lesion.
MRI-S evaluates the integrity of prostate tissue through spatial resolution
as well as the biochemical makeup of cells through a spectral analysis.
Together, this technology establishes a “finger-print” of disease when the
PSA is elevated. Once a lesion is identified, a series of targeted biopsies
can be performed, as we localize the disease in question.

Using a parametric approach, the center is utilizing all sequences of
the 3.0 T MRI-S scan including Dynamic Contrast Enhancement with
traditional prostate cancer diagnostic detection markers such as Color Flow
Doppler Ultrasound, PSA & DRE to establish a clear picture of the disease
process present. Interestingly, this technology often times allows
physicians to alter their treatment course when cancer has escaped the
prostate capsule. Furthermore, preliminary data from the Diagnostic Center
for Disease shows that the use of MRI-S coupled with DRE, PSA and
Ultrasound data provides a 75% yield in diagnosing prostate cancer compared
to the traditional 20-30% yield while using blind or random biopsies. Dr.
Wheeler’s mission is to provide a comprehensive approach to Prostate
Disease detection that while reproducible, is more patient friendly,
allowing Urologists to improve their diagnostic skills, thereby improving
their patient treatment outcomes.

While using the MRI-S scan as a “road map”, JM needed only 5 targeted
biopsies to find the elusive cancer while preventing “needle tracking”.
Subsequent pathology showed a Gleason Score of 7 (3+4). According to Dr.
Wheeler, “while many options of treatment remain for JM, he can at least
sleep better knowing the hidden disease that was chasing him had been
found”.

For more information, please visit http://www.MrisUSA.com or call
1-866-674-7872.

Safeway Inc. and the Prostate Cancer Foundation to Fund Landmark Prostate Cancer Research Collaboration

S.T.A.R Program Brings Together Researchers from North America’s
Leading Prostate Cancer Centers

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ — Safeway Inc. and the Prostate
Cancer Foundation today announced they will collectively donate $6 million
to fund the S.T.A.R. Program (for Special Team Amplification of Research),
an innovative research initiative focused on exploring the role of targeted
heat in cancer therapy to treat prostate cancer, as well as other research
strategies.

The S.T.A.R. Program is being launched for the first phase of research
and development with a $3 million grant from the Safeway Foundation which
raised the funds from its customers with donations made at checkout. The
Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) developed the collaborative research
partnership and matched the initial funds dollar-for-dollar, for a total $6
million commitment. PCF is the world’s largest philanthropic source of
support for prostate cancer research and has funded ten of the individual
scientists making up the S.T.A.R. North American team.

The program brings together an interdisciplinary team of investigators
from multiple prominent cancer research centers. The team consists of
investigators from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (program
lead and coordinator), the University of Michigan Cancer Center and the
University of British Columbia.

Additional expertise will be leveraged through the Prostate Cancer
Foundation from the University of Washington, and from M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center and Emory University. This unique program will bring expertise
throughout the cancer research and treatment communities to focus on a new
approach to prostate cancer treatment. “Similar to the program that Robert
Goddard put in place to make space flight a reality, everyone that has
input will be invited to the table to be part of the solution,” noted
Jonathan Simons, M.D., CEO and President of the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

“The S.T.A.R. Program is evidence of what can happen when you link the
fundraising power of a major company like Safeway with the research vision
of the Prostate Cancer Foundation,” emphasized Simons. “This program would
not have happened without Safeway and its long-standing commitment to
helping find a cure for prostate cancer. We are literally turning up the
heat on metastatic prostate cancer research.” Prostate cancer strikes more
than 218,000 men each year making it the most commonly diagnosed cancer in
men. It also is one of the most deadly cancers, with more than 27,000 men
dying each year from the disease, making it second only to lung cancer as a
leading cause of cancer deaths in men.

“Supporting this kind of innovative research has become a trademark of
the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and the principle reason Safeway developed
a relationship with the organization more than seven years ago,” said
Safeway Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Burd. “We
are pleased and honored to be associated with the S.T.A.R. Program
initiative and what promises to be pioneering work by some of the world’s
top cancer researchers,” Mr. Burd said.

In another innovative effort, the S.T.A.R. Program will convene a
“think tank” of some 70 experts in different areas of oncology from across
the nation to explore the question of why current therapies cure some types
of cancer but not others. The learnings from this effort will give
direction to future research on prostate cancer and other types of common
solid tumors that are currently the most difficult to treat.

“We are grateful to the leadership of Safeway and the Prostate Cancer
Foundation for this special effort,” said Robert Getzenberg, Ph.D.,
Director of Research, Brady Urological Institute, Johns Hopkins. “This
unique approach and highly interactive team will develop these new concepts
and extend them from the laboratory through testing in clinical trials to
the patient setting,” Getzenberg said.

The theory that heat can be used to help kill cancer cells comes from
an observation and review of scientific evidence by cancer researchers at
Johns Hopkins that testicular cancer patients, like seven-time Tour de
France winner Lance Armstrong, have much higher rates of survival than
others with different kinds of advanced cancer. Testicular cancer begins in
the testes, which are a few degrees cooler than the rest of the body. The
structural machinery of cancer cells spreading outside the testes may be
altered by the higher body temperatures, making them more susceptible to
standard chemotherapy treatments than other cancer types.

While heat therapy is in limited experimental use, researchers believe
the key to an effective treatment may be selectively heating cancer cells,
which can also prevent damage in adjacent healthy tissues. The goal, note
S.T.A.R. team members, is to find out the best way to deliver heat directly
to cancer cells. To do so, some of the S.T.A.R. Program researchers will
investigate the use of nanoparticles that are attracted to specific
proteins carried by cancer cells. Once the nanoparticle locates this
specific protein, it can enter the cancer cell, heating it from the inside
out after exposure to a magnetic field. The S.T.A.R. Program team will look
at this and other mechanisms for targeted heat delivery systems to cancer
cells.

In addition to Dr. Getzenberg at Johns Hopkins, the research team for
the S.T.A.R. Program includes:

– Theodore L. DeWeese, M.D., Professor and Department Chairman of
Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine (Baltimore)
– Donald Coffey, Ph.D., Professor of Urology, Oncology, Pathology,
Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine (Baltimore)
– Kenneth Pienta, M.D., Professor of Internal Medicine and Surgery,
and Director of the NCI Research Center in Prostate Cancer at the
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
– Martin Gleave, M.D., Professor of Urology, Director of Clinical
and Translational Research, The Prostate Centre, University of
British Columbia (Vancouver)

About Safeway, Inc.
Safeway Inc. is one of the largest food and drug retailers in North
America. The company operates over 1,700 stores in the Western,
Southwestern, Rocky Mountain, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States
and in western Canada. The Safeway Foundation has become a major source of
support to cancer research and treatment programs as well as to people with
disabilities and education programs. 2007 marked the seventh consecutive
year that Safeway has been raising awareness and funds for prostate cancer
research in partnership with the Prostate Cancer Foundation; during this
time, Safeway has raised nearly $29 million. http://www.safeway.com.

About the Prostate Cancer Foundation
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is the world’s largest
philanthropic source of support for prostate cancer research. Founded in
1993, the PCF has raised more than $300 million and provided funding for
prostate cancer research to more than 1,400 researchers at 100 institutions
worldwide. The PCF has a simple, yet urgent goal: to find better treatments
and a cure for recurrent prostate cancer.
http://www.prostatecancerfoundation.org.

WEBWIRE – Wednesday, October 24, 2007

ANN ARBOR, MI – The University of Michigan Center for Translational Pathology and The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) and have joined forces to raise $2 million to accelerate research towards developing targeted therapies for prostate cancer. The Prostate Cancer Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic source of research funding for prostate cancer, was founded by Mike Milken 14 years ago and has had a profound impact on advancing better treatments and the search for a cure.

Over the past decade, the PCF has awarded the University of Michigan close to $5 million in prostate cancer research funding in recognition of the important research being done here. And now the PCF is stepping up its commitment and has challenged the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology (MCTP) to raise $1 million — which they will match dollar for dollar for a total of $2 million to accelerate the potential of this transformational discovery. This initial $2 million goal is the first phase of a larger $16 million campaign. Proceeds raised will be directed to the U-M Prostate Cancer Targeted Therapy Research Fund.

“U-M has changed the paradigm of how investigators are researching targeted treatments for prostate cancers. This match is to help find a therapy similar to what was accomplished for the gene fusion BCR-ABL that was targeted by the blockbuster drug Gleevec to become an effective treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia,” says Jonathan W. Simons, chief executive officer and president of the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

The monies raised in this campaign will fund work to develop a therapy that can be engineered to seek out cells that harbor the gene fusion discovered by Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology. Chinnaiyan and his team found that two genes unique to prostate cancer fuse together and can be easily detected, resulting in a perfect target for cancer-killing therapies. With a new targeted therapy, physicians will be able to kill prostate cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.

“A therapy of this kind will be able to be extended into other common solid tumors, including cancer of the breast, lung, colon and skin. To accelerate the discovery of a therapy designed against the prostate cancer gene fusion, our research team initially needs $2 million to jump-start the translation of this laboratory discovery to the patients suffering from prostate cancer,” Chinnaiyan says.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in the United States. One in six American men will develop prostate cancer in the course of his lifetime. More than 218,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, and 27,000 will die from the disease. A little-known fact is that a man is 33 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than an American woman is to get breast cancer.

“It is an arms race and time is of the essence. We are seeing the largest budget cuts in federal funding ever from the National Institutes of Health and we must rely more and more on philanthropy. A generous commitment to advance this critically important research initiative will be instrumental to ending prostate cancer as a cause of death and suffering,” says Kenneth Pienta, M.D., director of urologic oncology at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

To join in the $2 million “Wolverines Against Prostate Cancer Challenge”, please contact Steffanie Fineman, director of development for the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology and Department of Urology, 734-615-9843 or ssamuels@umich.edu.

Written by Steffanie Fineman, 734-615-9843

Press release source

October 1, 2007

STANDARD TREATMENT FOR PROSTATE CANCER MAY ENCOURAGE SPREAD OF DISEASE

A popular prostate cancer treatment called androgen deprivation therapy may encourage prostate cancer cells to produce a protein that makes them more likely to spread throughout the body, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests.

Although the finding could eventually lead to changes in this standard treatment for a sometimes deadly disease, the Johns Hopkins researchers caution that their discovery is far too preliminary for prostate cancer patients or physicians to stop using it. The therapy is effective at slowing tumor growth, they emphasized.

David Berman, an assistant professor of pathology, urology and oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his colleagues identified the unsuspected potential problem with treatments that suppress testosterone after discovering that the gene that codes for the protein, called nestin, was active in lab-grown human prostate cancer cells.

Curious about whether prostate cancer cells in people also produce nestin, the researchers looked for it in cells taken from men who had surgery to remove locally confined cancers of their prostates and found none. But when they looked for nestin in prostate cancer cells isolated from patients who had died of metastatic prostate cancer - in which cancer cells spread out from the prostate tumor - they found substantial evidence that the nestin gene was active.

What was different, Berman speculated, is that androgen deprivation therapy, a treatment that reduces testosterone in the body, is generally given only when prostate cancers become aggressive and likely to metastasize.

Because prostate cancer growth is typically stimulated by testosterone, the treatment is thought to slow tumor growth and weaken the disease. Patients who eventually die because their disease metastasizes are almost certain to have received this type of therapy, he says.

Speculating that depriving cells of androgens might also, however, affect nestin expression, the researchers experimented on a prostate cancer cell line that depends on androgens to grow. When they removed androgens from the chemical mixture that the cells live in, their production of nestin increased.

Aware that the nestin gene has long been suggested to play some role in cell growth and development, Berman and his colleagues used a bit of laboratory sabotage called RNA interference to decrease the genetic expression of nestin and found that these cells weren’t able to move around and through other cells nearly as well as cells with normal nestin levels.

Prostate cancer cells with hampered nestin expression were also less likely than normal prostate cancer cells to migrate to other parts of the body when transplanted into mice. However, while nestin expression seemed pivotal for metastasis in these experiments, it didn’t seem to make a difference in tumor growth.

“What all this suggests is that nestin levels increased when prostate cancer cells are deprived of androgens and may encourage the cells to metastasize,” says Berman.

Besides Berman, other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in this study were Wolfram Kleeberger, M.D., G. Steven Bova, M.D., Matthew E. Nielsen, M.D., Mehsati Herawi, M.D., Ph.D., Ai-Ying Chuang, M.D., and Jonathan I. Epstein, M.D.

The research, published in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer Research, was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Evensen Family Foundation, and German Cancer Aid Foundation.

Press release source