THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

According to a recent press release a group of more than 40 leaders from academia, industry, philanthropy, and advocacy called today for the Obama Administration, Congress, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense to increase federal funding for research into imaging technologies for less invasive and more accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer.

At a meeting this week in Bethesda, the medical experts discussed strategies for speeding development of imaging technologies for prostate cancer.

“As physicians, scientists, educators and patients, we are personally concerned about the human and societal costs of prostate cancer. We firmly believe that more accurate imaging technology would lead to better patient care, including guidance for diagnosis, biopsy and minimally invasive therapy,” the consensus statement reads. “The … conference clearly demonstrated that real and important improvements in prostate cancer care are at hand if we are resolved to increase the national investment in prostate diagnostics.” Conference participants also signed a letter to Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the National Institutes of Health, urging increased federal research funding for prostate cancer imaging diagnostics.

“Prostate cancer is the most common major cancer [sic] in this country, and the incoming Obama administration and Congress must recognize development of accurate and affordable prostate cancer diagnostics and treatment as a national priority comparable to breast cancer,” said Dr. Faina Shtern, president and CEO of AdMeTech Foundation and a daughter of a prostate cancer survivor. “Indeed, prostate cancer can be cured if detected early, and yet today it is the second most lethal cancer in men. Just as alarming, the lack of accurate diagnostics results in widespread unnecessary biopsies and treatment, causing life-altering complications to men and billions of dollars annually to national health care.”

Dr. Theodore DeWeese, Chair of Radiation Oncology at Johns Hopkins University, was among the conference participants who joined to support the consensus statement: “As a physician, I firmly believe that we lack the accurate imaging tools that would help us perform better biopsies and design more optimal treatments for our patients.”

The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLiunk would certainly endorse the value of better imaging techniques and their specific application to the accurate diagnosis and staging of prostate cancer. At the present time we have no good really good ways to image the cancer within the prostate, to image with accuracy whether it extends outside the prostate, let alone to image whether it has metastasized to the regional lymph nodes or other sites beyond the prostate in small foci of cancer (“micrometastasis”). However, new imaging techniques will need to clearly prove their clinical value through tests that demonstrate that the data they provide truly change the ways in which physicians manage prostate cancer patients. Access to yet another half-dozen imaging methods, with yet another increase in the overall cost of care, will not be a useful step forward unless the imaging results can be applied with meaningful clinical benefit.

The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink would also note that prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of mjaor cancer diagnosed in men in the USA. The most commonly diagnosed form of major cancer is actually lung/brochical cancer, with a projected incidence of over 215,000 new cases in 2008 compared to the project 186,320 cases of prostate cancer.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Management Tagged: | Diagnosis, imaging, research