Santa Cruz County Prostate Cancer Support Group
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Serving all of SANTA CRUZ COUNTY Santa Cruz PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP October 2005 NEWSLETTER Howard Waage (688-0423) -----Editor _____________________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ++ A Special Event Will Replace Our Regular Meeting++
Heidi Faivre, M.P.H., R.D., dietitian from Dominican Hospital staff, has agreed to present a talk to us at our OCTOBER meeting 10/25/05 7:00 p.m. Please Join Us! ++++++++++++++++++++++ Where: Our meeting will be upstairs in two-story redwood Education Building behind Santa Cruz Dominican Hospital. We’ll be meeting in room C-1 on the 2nd Floor (Upstairs from the Katz Cancer Resource Center)
When: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 7:00 PM For more information: Please call-The Bennett and Suzy Katz Cancer Resource Center at Dominican Hospital 831-462-7770
(The October Steering committee meeting will begin earlier at 5:00 p.m., before the regular meeting)
Please feel free to contact any of the following steering committee members if you would like to volunteer or if you have any suggestions or questions.
Tony & Beverley Calvo 684-0940 Frank Schmetz 438 4781 Bill McDermott 423-8350 Howard Waage 688-0423 Richard & Tina Koch 761-3577 Julie Batz 724-2701 Lynn Dreeszen 439-8632 Tim Ryan 476-6550 Our website: http://www.scprostate.org Doug Thornton 724-6446 (Webmaster)
SUPPORT GROUP SUB-GROUP FOR MEN WITH ADVANCED PROSTATE CANCER MEETINGS.
This group will be for men that have been diagnosed with prostate cancer which has spread outside the prostate or who have experienced a recurrence after primary treatment. Typically, these men are receiving hormone blockade, are participating in a clinical trial or are receiving some other form of advanced treatment.
The sub-Group will meet every TWO months at the Katz Cancer Resource Center of Dominican Hospital. The sub-group will meet on the 2nd MONDAY OF THE MONTH. Next Meeting Date: December 12th, 5 – 7 pm.
The purpose of this group will be to better address the special problems and issues of men with advanced prostate cancer. In addition, at some meetings, we will invite local medical oncologists to discuss their approach and treatments Men with advanced prostate cancer will continue to be welcomed at the regular monthly meetings on the last Tuesday of the month. Tony Calvo has agreed to coordinate the sub-group. If you have any suggestions or questions, contact Tony Calvo at 684-0940.
SUPPORT GROUP SUB-GROUP MEETING FOR WIVES and PARTNERS OF MEN LIVING WITH PROSTATE CANCER
This group is for women to share information with each other, learn more about prostate cancer, and how to cope with the impact of the disease individually and within the family in a supportive, caring and confidential environment. The meeting will be held every two months, the 2nd Monday of the month, 5 – 7pm (same time as the men’s Advanced Prostate Cancer Meeting). For more information, contact Julie Batz at 724-2701 Next Meeting Date: December 12th, 5 – 7 pm, Rm. B-2 (upstairs from the Katz Cancer Resource Center)
Page 1 A Heads Up for our Upcoming Meetings !!!!
Maren Martin has agreed to to return to speak to our group on JANUARY 31, 2006! The subject will be "intimacy" especially as it relates to prostate cancer
Maren Martin is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a psychotherapy practice in Pacific Grove as well as a Certified Sex Therapist and specializes in sex and couple therapy. She has a special interest in helping cancer survivors have emotional intimacy and fulfilling sexual relationships. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
….PROSTATE CANCER IN THE NEWS..…
Hormone Therapy May Fight Localized Prostate Cancer By Steven Reinberg
THURSDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- For men with advanced prostate cancer confined to the prostate, radiation treatment along with a six-month program of androgen (male hormone) deprivation therapy can improve survival by as much as 50 percent, researchers report.
Androgen deprivation therapy lowers concentrations of testosterone, which experts have long recognized as a powerful stimulator of prostate cancer cell growth. Although hormone therapy is now standard treatment for metastatic prostate cancer, whether it is beneficial in treating prostate cancer still confined to the organ has been less clear. Also unclear was whether short-term hormone therapy might be effective -- most patients now receive the treatment over a period of at least three years.
"Finding that we can stop cancerous progression in 40 percent of men by just six months of testosterone suppression treatment with minimal side effects is enormously important," said study author Dr. Jim Denham, from the Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group and University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. In their study, Denham's team randomly assigned 818 men with locally advanced prostate cancer to radiation treatment with no testosterone suppression, or three months or six months of testosterone suppression.
Reporting in the Oct. 6 early online edition of The Lancet Oncology, the Australian team found that men treated with three months of hormone therapy before and during radiation were at a 35 percent lower risk of relapse compared to men receiving radiation alone. For men treated with six months of hormone therapy before and during radiation, that risk of relapse was reduced by 44 percent.
In addition, survival among men receiving both radiation and hormone treatment was 54 percent better compared with men who received radiation alone, according to the report. Radiation therapy has also changed for the better since this study was conducted, Denham noted.
"Technical improvements in radiotherapy equipment in the last 10 years will also improve treatment results," he said. "Our new trial, which is known as the RADAR trial, is testing the new radiotherapy equipment, as well as determining whether an additional year of testosterone suppression can produce further benefits in those men at greatest risk". One expert said these findings support a shorter course of hormone therapy.
"This is an important study, validating a [previous] study we published in 2004 that showed that six months of hormonal therapy and radiation improves cancer-specific survival compared with no hormonal therapy," said Dr. Anthony D'Amico, a Harvard researcher and chief of radiation oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Overall survival has not been affected, but this may be due to other causes of death among men in the study, he added. "Whether three years of hormonal therapy should still be standard is questioned by the current study and ours, and will be answered definitively by the large randomized study of three years verses six months of hormonal therapy, the results of which are soon to be released," D'Amico said.
However, another expert questioned whether the findings apply to the radiation therapy patients typically receive today.
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"It's an interesting result," said Dr. Stephen J. Freedland, an assistant professor of urology at Duke University School of Medicine. "The question is how applicable is it to your average patient today with prostate cancer?" "I'm not sure it applies to most men today," he said. For one thing, the dose of radiation used in the study is lower than what patients currently receive, Freedland noted.
Androgen deprivation therapy may be making up for less-than-optimal radiation therapy, Freedland said. "If we give higher-dose radiation, do we need to do androgen deprivation therapy?" he asked. Furthermore, Freedland believes the patients in the study had more advanced cancers than are commonly seen in prostate cancer patients today. "So if you take men who have low-risk disease, do these studies, observations really apply? We don't know the answer to that."
Patients who consult a radiation therapist regarding treatment for prostate cancer should ask about hormone therapy, Freedland advised. "The question to ask your radiation oncologist is: Am I one of those people who stand to benefit from hormone therapy?" Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news
http://www.southend.wayne.edu/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1709
Anti-cancer diet helps fight prostate cancer By Leah Miszcak
A&E: Oct/4/2005 - Cancer can affect anyone. In the U.S., it affects one in every two men and one in every three women, according to the National Cancer Institute. And, the number of people afflicted is rising.
Most people like to feel in control of their lives. Changing your diet as a preventative measure to cancer is a way of controlling health and cancer risks.
Though, it seems pointless because messages about foods that help prevent cancer are everywhere. One day it will be broccoli, the next it’s carrots. One might ask, “Are their any real foods that prevent cancer, or is this just a way to get Americans to eat their vegetables?”
“I hear about miracle foods that are suppose to prevent cancer all the time, but I don’t really pay much attention to them,” said Stephanie Braund, a senior who’s a secondary education and math double-major.
According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, there is no evidence that a single food item reduces the chances of developing cancer. But there are diet changes that can be made to improve overall health, ultimately reducing the risk of cancer.
On their website is a “Nutrition and Prostate Cancer” guide. This guide provides people with a diet that can help reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer. It starts with a detailed description of why nutrition matters, and goes into strategies that can help you plan an anti-cancer diet. Go to http://www.prostatecancerfoundation.org and click “Nutrition”
The National Cancer Institute also has a diet program aimed at reducing other cancer risks, too. This “Eat 5 to 9 a Day for Better Health” program deals with servings of fruits and vegetables. This program gives exact definitions of serving sizes as well as narrows down the estimate of five to nine.
Men and women should eat different amounts of servings, according to the guide. Women are recommended to eat seven servings of fruit and vegetables a day, whereas men are recommended to eat nine. This website gives information on not only why men and women have different goals, but also how to obtain them. It provides recipes and charts to give both men and women the information they need to obtain their goals.
Registered dietitian Sharon Saka said that there are foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals that can help reduce the risk of cancer. According to Saka, fiber, lutein, and carotenoids are all cancer-fighting substances. These can be found in dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, romaine lettuce, and collard greens. Saka also said, “foods rich in the vitamins C, E, and A, all antioxidants themselves, can protect you from cancer by preventing the growth of free radicals in your body, so stock up on oranges, avocados, and apricots.”
According to the British Medical Journal, having a healthy diet is not the only way to help reduce the risk of cancer. Studies conducted in 2000, indicate that a healthy diet mixed with a regular exercise schedule can help reduce the risk of breast cancer by 30 percent. Page 3
One-third of the 550,000 cancer deaths that occur in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society, are due to unhealthy diet and insufficient physical activity. For questions or comments on reducing the risk of cancer through lifestyle changes write to Letters@southend.wayne.edu. Source: http://www.southend.wayne.edu/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1709
New and Improved Prostate Cancer Test
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- September 22, 2005 - Doctors traditionally test men for prostate cancer using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test. But "false positive" results are common, and many men undergo unnecessary biopsies as a result.
Doctors also aren't really sure what constitutes an abnormal test result -- some believe higher readings indicate cancer, while others say even low readings that progress over time might suggest problems.
Now researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor think they've come up with a better way to monitor for the disease: a new blood test that screens for 22 different biomarkers associated with the cancer. In a study involving men with and without prostate cancer, the new test was effective at identifying cancerous samples about 81 percent of the time and effective at identifying non-cancerous samples about 88 percent of the time.
Investigators developed the 22-biomarker test after culling through more than 2,300 biomarkers. "These 22 biomarkers appear to be the right number," says study author Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D.
The authors believe the new test could now be implemented to screen men with higher than normal PSA levels to help avoid unnecessary biopsies, and eventually replace the PSA test. Developing new and better ways to test for prostate cancer is important because the disease strikes more than 230,000 men every year in America alone.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/. SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, 2005;353:1224-1235
Prostate Cancer Prevention: What you can do to reduce your risk
By Mayo Clinic staff-September 30, 2005 - Prostate cancer prevention is a "hot" area of medical research — the focus of several large-scale, long-term studies. This research holds exciting possibilities for the future and suggests some prostate cancer prevention strategies for you to use now.
As you decide what prevention strategies to adopt, keep in mind that several of the strongest known risk factors for prostate cancer are beyond your control. These include:
*Age. Prostate cancer is unusual in men under 50, but incidence of the disease increases dramatically after that age. *Race. African-American men are at increased risk of prostate cancer. *Genetics. Your risk of prostate cancer is higher if other men in your family have had the disease.
If you have these characteristics, it means only that your likelihood of developing prostate cancer is higher than that of a man without the characteristic. A 55-year-old African American man whose father had prostate cancer is still more likely to live out his life without prostate cancer than he is to develop it. The full range of factors that cause prostate cancer is still largely unknown.
Even if you don't have any of the three uncontrollable risk factors for prostate cancer, it pays to follow the lifestyle linked to a lower risk of the disease. The habits that protect against prostate cancer might help you to avoid other diseases as well — heart disease and colorectal cancer, for example. Find out which of these habits you've already adopted, and consider others you can make later on.
Diet and prostate cancer
Much of the research on prostate cancer prevention focuses on nutrition. Key factors include:
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* Fat. Prostate cancer rates vary greatly from one country to another, with the highest rates appearing in countries where people tend to eat a lot of fat. In fact, the number of prostate cancer deaths in a given country rises in direct proportion to the average total calories from fat in that country's typical diet.
* Vegetables. Some studies link a diet high in vegetables to a lower risk of prostate cancer. For example, one study found that men who ate 28 or more servings of vegetables each week had lower rates of prostate cancer compared to men who ate less than 14 servings.
* Fish. In one study, prostate cancer was two to three times more common in men who ate no fish as in men who ate moderate to large amounts of fish. Types of fish that are rich in the fatty acids that protect against prostate cancer and other diseases include salmon, herring, and mackerel.
So far, research does not support definite nutritional guidelines for preventing prostate cancer. However, you can reasonably act on these suggestions: * Eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains. * Reduce intake of saturated fat and cholesterol. * Limit sweets and salt. * Drink alcoholic beverages in moderation, if at all. * Eat moderate-sized portions and control calories.
Obesity and prostate cancer Researchers have not established a direct link between obesity and incidence of prostate cancer. However, obesity might affect levels of hormones related to prostate cancer risk.
Strategies for preventing obesity include: * Following guidelines for a healthy diet * Meeting with your doctor to develop a plan for physical activity * Doing some form of aerobic exercise for 30 minutes or more daily
Chemical agents and prostate cancer Certain drugs, vitamins and minerals may reduce your risk of prostate cancer, a strategy known as chemoprevention. Current research does not support the routine use of any drug or nutritional supplement to prevent prostate cancer. Yet several chemical agents show potential benefits.
Drug protection Proscar (finasteride), traditionally prescribed to treat prostate enlargement, or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), reduced overall rates of prostate cancer by 25 percent in the 18,000-man Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT). Men who took finasteride, however, were more likely to experience impotence, loss of sexual desire and breast enlargement than those who took a placebo. In addition, the men who did develop prostate cancer while taking Proscar were more likely to have aggressive forms of the disease. The reasons for these results are unknown.
Another BPH drug, duasteride (Avodart), also seems to have properties that prevent prostate cancer. A large, international study is now underway to further test this finding.
Finally, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) might prevent prostate cancer. These drugs include ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) and naproxen (Aleve). NSAIDS inhibit an enzyme called COX-2, which is found in prostate cancer cells. More studies are needed to confirm whether NSAID use actually results in lower rates of prostate cancer or reduced deaths from the disease.
Plant-based protection Soybeans and other legumes contain phytoestrogens, which are plant-based chemicals that behave like the hormone estrogen in the human body. These chemicals might help to prevent prostate cancer. In fact, one possible explanation for lower rates of prostate cancer in Asian men is that they eat more soy protein.
Researchers are not sure how phytoestrogens could produce this effect. Phytoestrogens may decrease levels of androgens, male hormones that stimulate the growth of prostate cancer. Or, phytoestrogens might simply balance out androgen effects.
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Tomatoes and related products, such as tomato sauce and ketchup, might offer protection in a different way — by providing lycopene. This vitamin-like substance acts as an antioxidant, lowering cancer risk by preventing DNA damage in the nuclei of cells. Go for the richest sources of lycopene — processed tomatoes, pink grapefruit and watermelon rather than supplemental lycopene in tablet form.
Selenium and vitamin E Years of nutrition research have suggested that daily doses of the mineral selenium, vitamin E or both may help to prevent prostate cancer. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), launched in 2001, is following up on these observations.
By its projected endpoint in 2013, SELECT will have data on prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment from over 32,000 men. These men are taking selenium, vitamin E, a combination of both, or a placebo. By studying such a large number of people over so many years, researchers will gain detailed evidence about the preventive effects of these two substances.
A word of caution: Taking herbal medicines or nutritional supplements without medical guidance poses some risks — particularly if you combine such products with over-the-counter or prescription medications. Before using any drug, herb or supplement, talk to your doctor.
Prostate cancer risk: A common sense perspective The reasons for interest in preventing prostate cancer are clear. Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in men, exceeded only by lung cancer.
Even so, prostate cancer affects far more men than it eventually kills. According to the National Cancer Institute, about one-fifth of men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. Yet only 3 percent of American men will die of the disease.
Why does the number of prostate cancer diagnoses exceed the number of deaths by such a large ratio? One answer is that prostate cancer progresses more slowly than many other types of cancer. Many men live with it for years. Some survive disease-free after treatment. And others refrain from treatment while closely monitoring the cancer's progression — an approach known as "watchful waiting."
To keep your risks in perspective, stay in regular contact with your doctor about your prostate health. Ask about prevention strategies that make the most sense for you, given your current health and medical history.
An annual prostate checkup can't reduce your risk of cancer, as perhaps a healthy diet and exercise can. But having regular checkups is crucial to staying healthy. If prostate cancer does develop, a digital rectal exam (DRE) and a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test may discover the problem in its earliest stages. This is the time when treatment can be most effective. Original Article: http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=MC00027
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The Santa Cruz County Prostate Cancer Support Group does not endorse any provider, organization, product or individual. All medical decisions should be made with the advice and consultation of medical professionals.
Our newsletter serves over 200 members. Many THANKS to the American Cancer Society for assisting with the printing and mailing of this newsletter and the Katz Cancer Resource Center for allowing us to use their facility.
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