Gee! … Didja notice? … There really hasn’t been anything worth reporting in the prostate cancer news for the best part of the past 2 weeks. … Seriously!
We could have scraped the barrel and come up with some pretty boring and repetitive “stuff”, but — as you know — to the greatest possible extent we do our best to make sure we actually provide useful news … as opposed to recycled press releases and other junk mail. There hasn’t been any useful news.
Now this could mean that someone has cured prostate cancer and we missed the press release. It could also mean that all the world’s prostate cancer researchers and treaters have taken an extended vacation in Antarctica. However, we have seen no evidence of either of these events. A third possibility is that everyone is so exhausted by all the quibbling over the precise implications of the Affordable Care Act and the guidance issued by the USPSTF is that they have run out of things to say. (This might be a good thing, of course!)
So … while we wait for everyone to come up with some “new” news that’s worth reporting, the one thing that we can tell you is that the Prostate Cancer Roundtable will be holding one of its regular get-togethers tomorrow in Washington, DC, right down the street from The Capitol, to discuss whatever we need to do about:
- Ensuring continuing funding for the DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program
- Educating men about when they definitely do (and perhaps don’t) need to be having PSA tests
- Ensuring access to good quality care for those less fortunate than the fully insured and
- Pushing some other envelopes that continue to need pushing (such as just how much of the annual budget of the National Cancer Institute is really getting spent on research that benefits prostate cancer)
Our meetings are usually cordial — although there are some strong differences of opinion in places. The good news is that we have finally managed to work out a way to collaborate on shared priorities without simultaneously tearing each others’ throats out in public over the things we don’t all agree about.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Search for new and
ongoing trials on the
CTAG PCa web site
Did you see all the stuff about G202 — from weeds?
In my opinion there was business as usual on the prostate cancer news front the last 2 weeks — a lot of new interesting papers. Comments from the prostatecancerinfolink would be helpful, especially on this two papers:
(1) Stephan JJ, et al. “The transcription factor SPDEF suppresses prostate tumor metastasis,” which states that “First, we hope that the presence of SPDEF could help doctors recognize prostate cancers that don’t require treatment. If future studies confirm the group’s initial findings, the presence of SPDEF could predict prostate cancers that are unable to metastasize and so unable to kill. These cancers could be left to run their course without the use of treatments that sometimes carry difficult side effects.
“Of immediate interest is the potential use of SPDEF, MMP9, and/or MMP13 as a diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarkers to distinguish indolent from aggressive disease as previously proposed. Moreover, the use of MMP9 and/or MMP13 as downstream readouts of SPDEF expression may offer an excellent secreted biomarker that could be used in place of or in addition to prostate specific antigen testing.”
(2) Drug from Mediterranean weed kills tumor cells in mice: “Molecular grenade” now in clinical trials for advanced cancer.
“In a direct comparison, G202 outperformed the chemotherapy drug docetaxel, reducing seven of nine human prostate tumors in mice by more than 50 percent in 21 days. Docetaxel reduced one of eight human prostate tumors in mice by more than 50 percent in the same time period.”
Sure, the sucess is reported only for the mouse model, not for the 29 patients in phase I clinical trial, but it sounds impressive and phase II clinical trial is on the way.
Dear Phillip and Gunterman:
The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink almost never comments on the type of early stage, preclinical research you refer to. You would perhaps be astonished at the frequency with which products that show astounding results in rats and mice “vanish” into obscurity when people try to give them to humans. When Dr. Isaacs and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins can announce some results from G202 in man, we will look carefully at those results. Until then, all we could say anyway is, “Let’s see what happens when this supposedly important new research is actually tried in clinical practice.” The list of products that have “outperformed” docetaxel over the years in the laboratory probably runs into the thousands. The number of those products actually approved for use in man so far is two (or perhaps three if you include cabazitaxel).
The same applies to new diagnostic and prognostic possibilities like SPDEF. When there are some real data showing a real clinical value, then there will be something to talk about. Most of the things that are hyped by academic PR departments at this stage in the research process have more to do with grant funding than they ever turn out to do with clinical practice.
Mike:
Thanks for keeping it real on this site. As one of those patients who is looking for things with clinical practice value (soon I hope) it is helpful for me not to have too much commentary on in vitro, mice, etc., stories.
Bill
One might argue that there has been little prostate cancer news for not 2 weeks, but 2 decades. It’s really just a matter of which threshold one applies for the “progress” classification. That philosophical point aside, here’s something relevant: there has been a dramatic rise in the provision of vaccum erection devices.