BACK TO ARCHIVE

Do you have a news item to contribute?

We want to hear from you! Members of the support group are welcome to contribute any items of interest to the group at large. Updates on your status, news about prostate cancer treatments, or anything you feel would be of interest to the group are all welcome. Contact Doug Thornton, 588-1586 or or Howard Waage, 688-0423 with your story.  

******************* 

July 2006                                           NEWSLETTER                                           Howard Waage  (688-0423) ----Editor ******************************

Where:   Our meeting will be downstairs in two-story redwood Education Building behind Santa Cruz                  Dominican Hospital. We meet in the Bennett & Suzy Katz Cancer Resource Center on the 1st Floor.

 When:   Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 7:00 PM  For more information: Please call-The Bennett and Suzy Katz             Cancer Resource Center at Dominican Hospital 831-462-7770

 Please feel free to contact any of the following steering committee members if you would like to volunteer r if you have any suggestions or questions. 

 Tony &  Beverley Calvo  684-0940   Frank Schmetz  438 4781   Bill McDermott 423-8350   Howard Waage 688-0423  Julie Batz 724-2701     Lynn Dreeszen 439-8632     Tim Ryan 476-6550

Our website: http://www.scprostate.org   Doug Thornton  724-6446 (Webmaster)

 SUPPORT SUB-GROUP FOR MEN WITH ADVANCED PROSTATE CANCER MEETINGS

 This group is 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 meets every TWO months at the Katz Cancer Resource Center of Dominican Hospital. The sub-group meets on the 2nd MONDAY OF THE MONTH.  Next meeting……… August 14th, 5 - 7pm

 The purpose of this group is to better address the special problems and issues of men with advanced prostate cancer. In addition, at some meetings, we 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 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 and same building as the men’s Advanced Prostate Cancer Meeting). For more information, contact Julie Batz at 724-2701. Next meeting……… August 14th, 5 - 7pm, upstairs in Room E

We Need Your Help…….

The American Cancer Society Relay For Life® is an event that raises awareness, celebrates survivors, remembers those lost to the disease, and raises funds to fight cancer through research, education, advocacy and patient services.

Be part of the American Cancer Society Relay For Life! Together, we’ll honor the courageous spirit of people who have been touched by cancer.  Our support group will be having a table at this great event and we’d really appreciate if you can spend a couple of hours helping out. Please call anyone on the steering committee if you can help and we’d love to see you there.

           Relay For Life of Santa Cruz    July 15 - 16, 2006  Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA

            Relay For Life of Watsonville   August 12 - 13, 2006 Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds

….PROSTATE CANCER IN THE NEWS..…

Women Can Help Men Talk To Doctors About Prostate Cancer

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Skip the shirt and tie this Father's Day -- show Dad you really care by urging him to talk to his doctor about prostate cancer. Most men will listen, hints a survey released today.

"Women don't realize how much influence they have with their husbands on matters of health," said Leslie D. Michelson, head of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. "Daughters, wives and partners may be our secret weapons to get men to talk with their doctors about prostate cancer."

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in the U.S., striking one in six American men. This year alone, an estimated 234,000 men will be diagnosed with the disease and 27,000 will die from it.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation/Gillette Men's Health Survey, which involved 1,572 healthy men and women ages 25 to 62 years, shows, not surprisingly, that men are reluctant to talk with their doctors about prostate cancer. Among men with a family history of the disease, about one in four has never discussed his family history or his personal risk with a doctor. Of men older than 50 -- the age of highest risk -- nearly one in five has never discussed his family history or personal risk for prostate cancer with a doctor.

While 73 percent of men surveyed said they are concerned about prostate cancer, many are misinformed about the disease -- even those at increased risk for developing prostate cancer. Most notably, 30 percent of men over age 50 said they would wait for symptoms to develop before seeing a doctor, when, in fact, most men who develop prostate cancer never experience any symptoms in the early stages of the disease, when more treatment options are available.

Nearly three quarters of the men and women surveyed mistakenly believed that prostate cancer is less common among men than breast cancer is among women. In reality, men are 33 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than women are to develop breast cancer.

But perhaps the most important "take home" message of the survey, the authors say, is the important role that wives and daughters can play in raising men's awareness of prostate cancer, and other major threats to their health, and getting them to talk to their doctor.

Almost three quarters of men surveyed said they would be very likely to talk to their doctor about prostate cancer if urged do to so by the women in their lives. Yet, only half of the women, according to the survey, believe they have this kind of influence over their man.     Source: http://today.reuters.com

Micrometastatic Disease After Surgery & Radiation  by Charles Myers M.D

(This is part of an article from the Prostate Forum (May 2006) a subscription newsletter by Dr. Charles Myers)

For many years now, we've known that women with breast cancer can develop metastatic disease twenty or more years after the cancerous breast has been removed. This phenomenon also occurs in melanoma patients. In both cancers, even before diagnosis occurs, it appears that cancer cells can spread throughout the body and then stay dormant for many years before they begin to regrow.

Recently, several lines of evidence suggest that the same process may happen in prostate cancer. For example, Dr. Patrick Walsh at Johns Hopkins recenty reported that only 64% of his patients were disease-free fifteen years after radical prostatectomy and that ten percent of relapses occurred between the tenth and fifteenth year. This is important because Dr. Walsh has long made it a practice to only operate on those likely to benefit from surgery. He is also widely recognized as one of the best surgeons of his generation. In a separate study, Swanson et al. reported a steady stream of cancer relapses out to 22.5 years. In fact, about half the relapses occurred after the tenth post-surgical year. Both studies illustrate that prostate cancer can remain dormant for more than a decade after surgery before evolving into metastatic cancer.

So what's going on here? Special research techniques allow investigators to detect one cancer cell in the midst of 10 million normal cells. These techniques show that many newly diagnosed patients have cancer cells circulating in their

blood stream and even lodged in their bone marrow. It is my best guess that a portion of these cells probably survive in a dormant state only to reemerge as metastatic disease years after an apparently successful radical prostatectomy. Obviously, this doesn't happen to everyone, but at present we have no way of knowing who will recur and who won't. For this reason, I think it is prudent to think about your cancer as a life-time problem like diabetes, hypertension or high cholesterol rather than something you treat once and can then stop thinking about. Your cancer will always be with you. The key is to constantly be on the outlook for recurrent cancer and to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk of recurrence.

Preventing Relapse - In the past several issues of Prostate Forum, we've reviewed the potential role of diet and supplements in preventing prostate cancer progression. (See issues Vol 9 #3 and Vol 9 #4, available at www.prostateforum.com/backissues.htm.)

But there are also several prescription drugs that may reduce your risk of recurrence. The evidence to support these drugs varies considerably and in no case do we have large-scale randomized controlled trials proving their benefit. In addition to those listed … there are other drugs that show promise, but have not been so fully evaluated. (These drugs are listed in Dr. Myers newsletter)

As we've discussed before in this newsletter, there are two major male sex hormones: testosterone and dihydrotestosterone. Dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, is formed from testosterone and is typically present at 10% of the concentration of testosterone. Dihydrotestosterone appears to have a relatively limited role in adult males but it does exacerbate male-pattern baldness and stimulates prostate growth. Proscar was the first drug developed that blocks the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone and it has received PDA approval for the treatment of male-pattern baldness as well as benign prostatic hypertrophy, a disease involved in increasing prostate size with age. Because Proscar prevents conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, the drug not only decreases dihydrotestosterone, but also causes an increase in serum testosterone levels. Within prostate tissue, these changes can be quite dramatic, with the dihydrotestosterone declining by 90% and the testosterone level increasing ten fold.

Proscar has a number of interesting effects in patients. First, it dramatically decreases blood flow to prostate tissue. This has led Proscar to become the standard treatment in men bleeding from their prostate gland, which in turn has led to the suggestion that dihydrotestosterone, not testosterone, controls prostate blood flow.

In between 15-20% of men, Proscar suppresses libido even though it markedly increases serum testosterone levels. While this side effect is reversible, it suggests a possible difference among men in the role of dihydrotestosterone in maintaining sex drive.

In a recent, large randomized controlled trial, Proscar caused nearly a 25% reduction in the risk of prostate cancer. And in another randomized controlled trial, the risk of recurrent cancer following radical prostatectomy was significantly reduced by 10 mg per day of Proscar. This single study provides evidence to support using Proscar to reduce the risk of recurrent prostate cancer. Since the one major side effect of this drug—loss of sex drive—is reversible, using Proscar appears to be extraordinarily safe.

There are two pathways leading from testosterone to dihydrotestosterone and Proscar blocks only one of these. Avodart is a second-generation drug designed to replace Proscar and it has the added advantage of blocking both paths from testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. By every indicator I can find, Avodart is a better drug at blocking dihydrotestosterone and this hormone's biologic effects.

The study of Avodart's impact on prostate cancer is in its early phase. At present, I can think of only one clinical study that sheds light on this issue. A large randomized controlled trial testing Avodart as a treatment for benign prostatic hypertrophy has been in progress for a number of years. In the control arm, the cumulative incidence of prostate cancer has increased steadily from year to year, as one might expect. In the patients on Avodart, the number of new cases of prostate cancer has fallen off fairly dramatically and is, at present, 50% of the control group.                                          

 I think this makes a reasonable case for using either Proscar or Avodart to delay or prevent relapse following a radical prostatectomy. Nevertheless, a large-scale randomized controlled trial would be an ideal way of testing its use.

If you are interested in subscribing to Dr. Myers monthly PROSTATE FORUM newsletter call: 800-305-2432  or visit: www.prostateforum.com

Research Finds Lesser Rectal Cancer Risks Associated with Prostatic Irradiation

03 Jul 2006 - According to a new study published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, no appreciable risks were found to be associated with prostratic irradiation and the development of rectal cancer.

Wayne S. Kendal, M.D., Ph.D., an Associate Professor in Radiation Oncology at the Ottawa Hospital Regional Cancer Centre in Ontario said this study has uncovered the real facts and helped people choosing radiation therapy as one of the treatments available for prostrate cancer.

Men received radiation therapy for prostate cancer are not at any appreciable increased risk of developing rectal cancer compared to those not given radiation therapy, according to a new study published in the July 1, 2006, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

This year, 235,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The main ways of dealing with the disease are radiation therapy, surgery and watchful waiting - each of which has its benefits and disadvantages. Researchers have hypothesized that one disadvantage of using radiation to kill the cancer cells in the prostate is that it might also make men more likely to develop cancer in the nearby rectum.

In this study, doctors in Canada evaluated the records of 237,773 men who had prostate cancer. Of them, 33,841 received radiation therapy, 167,607 had their prostate removed surgically and 36,335 received neither treatment. On an initial simple evaluation, doctors found that rectal cancer developed in 243 men who received radiation (0.7 percent), 578 men treated with surgery (0.3 percent), and 227 of the men given neither treatment (0.8 percent). Once doctors had adjusted for the age differences between all the men in the irradiated and non-irradiated groups, they could not find any significant increased risk of rectal cancer in the irradiated men compared to those not given radiation therapy.

Rectal cancer from other causes is frequent enough in our population to obscure any small incidence of radiation-induced cancer. I hope that the results of this study will help men with prostate cancer and their families put these risks in their proper perspective, and not let their concerns about rectal cancer dissuade them from choosing radiation therapy as a treatment for this disease, said Wayne S. Kendal, M.D., Ph.D., an Associate Professor in Radiation Oncology at the Ottawa Hospital Regional Cancer Centre in Ontario, Canada.

Source: Eurekalert  http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=11974

******************************

Fair Use Notice: This newsletter may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owners. We believe that this not-for-profit, educational use constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law). If you wish to use any copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

+++++

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 250 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.