April 2007                                           NEWSLETTER

                                                                                                                                                      Howard Waage  (688-0423) ----Editor

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Where:   Our meeting will be in the Bennett & Suzy Katz Cancer Resource Center on the 1st Floor of the

                    two-story redwood Education Building behind Santa Cruz Dominican Hospital.

When:   Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 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 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

Michael and 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 FOR MEN WITH ADVANCED PROSTATE CANCER

The Advanced support group is for men diagnosed with prostate cancer which has spread outside the prostate or who have experienced a recurrence after primary treatment. Our purpose is to address the special problems and issues of men with advanced prostate cancer.  This group meets every TWO months on the second Monday of the month, at the Katz Cancer Resource Center at Dominican Hospital. If you have any questions, please contact Tony Calvo at 

684-0940. Refreshments provided. 2007 MEETING DATE: MONDAY, 5 – 7PM  June 11th

SUPPORT GROUP FOR WIVES & PARTNERS OF MEN 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. This group meets every TWO months on the second Monday of the month. (same time as the men’s Advanced Prostate Cancer Meeting). For more info or questions, contact Julie Batz at 724-2701. 2007 MEETING DATE:

MONDAY, 5 – 7PM  June 11th. Katz Resource Center Rm. E (upstairs) - Refreshments provided.

….PROSTATE CANCER IN THE NEWS..…

Soy Found Protective Against Localized Prostate Cancer Only

20 Mar 2007  - The largest study examining the relationship between the traditional soy-rich Japanese diet and development of prostate cancer in Japanese men has come to a seemingly contradictory conclusion: intake of isoflavone chemicals, derived largely from soy foods, decreased the risk of localized prostate cancer but increased the risk of advanced prostate cancer.

The prospective study of 43,509 men, published in the March issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, suggests that the effects of isoflavones on prostate cancer development may differ according to disease stage, say researchers at the National Cancer Center in Japan.

One possible explanation is that isoflavones may delay the progression of latent prostate cancer only; once tumors lose estrogen-receptor beta expression and become aggressive, isoflavones may fail to protect against the development of advanced cancer, and might even increase the risk of progression, possibly by reducing serum testosterone, researchers say. It is also possible that advanced and localized prostate cancer may be different tumor subtypes, which may react differently to isoflavones.

"The present findings provide no clear understanding of when or how localized cancer will develop to aggressive cancer, and of the related effect of isoflavones," said the study's first author, Norie Kurahashi, M.D., of the Epidemiology and Prevention Division of the National Cancer Center.

"Given that Japanese consume isoflavones regularly throughout life, we do not know the period during which the effects of isoflavones on prostate cancer are preventive, and further research is required to find that out, including well-designed clinical trials," she said. Until those studies are done, the researchers recommend that Japanese men continue to consume isoflavones through their food and not through supplements.

"Consumption of isoflavones from traditional Japanese food throughout life may protect against the incidence of prostate cancer, but we cannot recommend the use of isoflavones from supplements for people who do not regularly consume these chemicals, because the relationship between isoflavones and the risk of advanced prostate cancer is not yet clear," Kurahashi said.

Isoflavones act as both strong antioxidants and plant-based estrogens. Soybeans are the most common source of isoflavones, especially genistein and daidzein, which have been shown in some animal studies to exert a protective effect against prostate cancer.

Japanese men eat significantly more soy-based foods than do Western men, and the incidence of prostate cancer is much lower in Asian countries than in Western countries. Still, reviews of latent, or clinically insignificant, prostate cancer findings in autopsy reports have revealed no difference between the populations so scientists have theorized that isoflavones stop latent cancers from developing further.

But because smaller epidemiological studies in Japan have reached differing conclusions about the protective effects of soy on prostate cancer development, this research team conducted the most comprehensive analysis to date. They polled thousands of men age 40-69 about their consumption of 147 foods, the most popular of which were miso soup (primarily made from fermented soybeans), natto (also a product of fermented soybeans) and tofu, made from soy milk. Japanese consume miso soup more frequently, usually daily, than other soy foods, and miso, natto, and tofu account for about 90 percent of the population's consumption of daidzein and genistein, according to Kurahashi.

The researchers then followed participants from 1995 through 2004 and found that 307 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer. In this group, 74 cases were advanced, 218 were confined to the prostate organ, and 15 were of undetermined stage.

They concluded that intake of genistein, daidzein, miso soup and soy food had no overall link to diagnosis of prostate cancer. However, they calculated that the risk of developing localized prostate cancer was 50 percent lower in men who ate the most isoflavones compared to men who ate the least - meaning that men in the top category ate between two and three times as much isoflavone-rich food.

However, in a discovery they cannot explain, they also calculated that the risk of developing advanced prostate cancer was twice as high in men who consumed two or more bowls of miso soup a day than in men who ate less than one bowl of soup.

They also found that the protective effect of isoflavone-rich food was strongest in men who were older than 60: the more isoflavones they ate, the more they reduced their risk of developing localized prostate cancer. "Isoflavone may be protective for localized prostate cancer only in men aged more than 60 years, and may not have a protective effect in the early stage of prostate cancer in younger men," the researchers conclude in their study.

The inconsistencies in the finding - that isoflavones decreased the risk of localized prostate cancer, but not the risk of advanced prostate cancer - could be errors in food measurement, or could be due to the fact that the number of participants who developed advanced prostate cancer was small, said Kurahashi. Or, as researchers speculate, isoflavones could interact with the estrogen receptor on prostate tissue enough to inhibit production of testosterone, which can fuel prostate cancer. When tumors lose all of their estrogen receptors and stop responding to isoflavone-induced hormonal interference, they grow aggressively.

"A broad body of research is required to clarify the timing and period of isoflavones' preventive effect on prostate cancer development," Kurahashi said.

Source:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=65407

Life expectancy doubled for advanced prostate cancer patients

Men's Health News- 11-Mar-2007 After being diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, many men are told that their disease is untreatable and that less aggressive treatment is best.

Often this means patients are told to watch and wait -- that is, to do nothing at all. A new study by physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center turns conventional wisdom on its head, finding either surgical removal of the prostate (prostatectomy) or radiation treatment more than doubles the life expectancy for these patients when compared with those receiving the conservative approach.

Patients with the most aggressive non-metastatic prostate cancers (Gleason scores 8-10), if treated with prostatectomy or radiation, can expect to live more than 14 years; those treated conservatively will live, on average, less than 7 years. The study appears in the March Journal of Urology.

"Unfortunately, pessimism abounds among many doctors, who believe that aggressive prostate cancers are beyond cure and should only be followed with watchful waiting, forestalling any immediate treatment. This new study points to the fallacy of this outlook, finding surgery and radiation more than double the life expectancy for these patients," says Dr. Ashutosh Tewari, the study's first author and director of robotic prostatectomy and urologic oncology outcomes at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and the Ronald P. Lynch Associate Professor of Urologic Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

The study involved a retrospective statistical analysis of outcomes of 453 cases of clinically localized aggressive prostate (graded Gleason scores 8-10) at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

"Ultimately, randomized clinical trials studying long-term outcomes will be necessary to fully demonstrate the benefits of treatment for these patients," adds Dr. David Nanus, a study co-author and medical director of the Genitourinary Oncology Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. He is co-division chief of hematology and medical oncology and the Mark W. Pasmantier Professor of Hematology and Oncology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. The study's senior author is Dr. Mani Menon of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

In 2006, roughly 234,000 American men were diagnosed with prostate cancer. The most aggressive prostate cancers often result in early metastasis and death. Left untreated, as many as 85 percent of men die from prostate cancer within 10 years of diagnosis. High-grade cancers are also unique because they can affect younger men and have a relative resistance to radiation.  Source http://www.med.cornell.edu and http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22510

Green tea and COX-2 inhibitors combine to slow growth of prostate cancer

Drinking a nice warm cup of green tea has long been touted for its healthful benefits, both real and anecdotal. But now researchers have found that a component of green tea, combined with low doses of a COX-2 inhibitor, could slow the spread of human prostate cancer.

In the March 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrate that low doses of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib, administered with a green tea polyphenol called pigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), can slow the growth of human prostate cancer. Their experiments were performed in cell cultures and in a mouse model for the disease.

“Celecoxib and green tea have a synergistic effect -- each triggering cellular pathways that, combined, are more powerful than either agent alone,” said Hasan Mukhtar, Ph.D., professor of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin and member of Wisconsin’s Paul Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center. “We hope that a clinical trial could lead to a preventative treatment as simple as tea time.”

Previous research has linked the cyclooxygenase-2 enzyme, commonly known as COX-2, to many cancer types, including prostate cancer, said Mukhtar. Mukhtar and his colleagues have previously shown COX-2 inhibitors like celecoxib (known under the brand name Celebrex™) suppress prostate cancer in animal models. COX-2 inhibitors also have been shown to cause adverse cardiovascular effects when administered at high doses over long durations.

In 2004, Mukhtar and his colleagues demonstrated that green tea polyphenol EGCG has cancer-fighting abilities of its

own. Their study, published in Cancer Research, showed that EGCG can modulate the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1)-driven molecular pathway in a mouse model for human prostate cancer, pushing the cells toward programmed cell death (apoptosis).

“We believed that COX-2 inhibitors may still prove beneficial if used in combination with complementary agents,” Mukhtar said. “Our studies showed that the additive effect of green tea enables us to utilize the cancer-fighting abilities of COX-2 inhibitors, but at lower, safer doses.”

In this latest research, Mukhtar and his colleagues looked at the effects of the two substances on cultured human prostate cancer cells. Alone, both EGCG and NS-398, a COX-2 inhibitor similar to celecoxib, demonstrated the ability to slow cancer cell growth and limit the presence of known cancer-promoting proteins within the cell samples. Together, EGCG and NS-398 suppressed cell growth by an additional 15 to 28 percent.

The researchers repeated the experiment in mouse models of prostate cancer, using celecoxib and an oral suspension of the decaffeinated green tea polyphenol. By using pharmacy-grade celecoxib and actual tea, they had hoped to replicate real-life conditions. “The idea is that it would be easier to get people to drink green tea than it would be to take an additional dietary supplement,” Mukhtar said.

In mice that were not treated with either substance, the tumor volume averaged 1,300 cubic millimeters, whereas mice given either the tea or celecoxib had tumors averaging 835 cubic millimeters and 650 cubic millimeters, respectively. Tumors taken from mice given both agents, however, measured on average a volume of 350 cubic millimeters.

In parallel to tumor growth inhibition, mice that received a combination of green tea and celecoxib registered a greater decrease in prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels compared to that in celecoxib alone or green tea alone treated animals. PSA is a protein produced by the cells of the prostate and is used as a marker for detection and progression of prostate cancer. These results, combined with a marked decrease in the presence of cancer-promoting proteins, offered clear indications that green tea and celecoxib, combined, could be useful in slowing prostate cancer growth, Mukhtar said.

“Prostate cancer typically arises from more than one defect in the cellular mechanics, which means that a single therapeutic might not work fighting a particular cancer long-term,” Mukhtar said. “If tests in human trials replicate these results, we could see a powerful combined therapy that is both simple to administer and relatively cost effective.”

Source: American Association for Cancer Research -   http://www.physorg.com/news91975632.html

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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 260 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.