Bill Rodgers, the former top-ranked marathon runner in the world, is running next Monday’s 113th Boston Marathon to promote prostate cancer awareness at the age of 61. A four-time winner of the Boston Marathon, Rodgers will be helping Athletes for a Cure, a program of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, to raise funds for and build awareness of prostate cancer.

Rodgers was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. “There was no indication of any problem before I was diagnosed,” said Rodgers in a press release. “I’ve always tried to watch my health. Being so physically active, I was completely shocked to learn I had prostate cancer. I was also surprised to find out one out of six American men will also be in this same situation sometime in their lives. Prostate cancer is just that prevalent.”

Risk factors for prostate cancer include being 50 years of age or older; being of African heritage; having a brother, son, or father who had prostate cancer; and eating a high fat diet or drinking alcohol.

The American Cancer Society does not recommend routine prostate cancer screening for all men but recommends that health care professionals “offer testing with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital rectal exam (DRE) yearly, beginning at age 50, to men who are at average risk of prostate cancer and have at least a 10-year life expectancy.” They also recommend that screening be considered at 40 or 45 if the person has high risk factors such as being of African American heritage and having a family history of prostate cancer at an early age.

The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and one of the most prestigious races. In 2008 nearly 22,000 runners completed the course.

For more information, see Healia’s resources about prostate cancer prevention and screening, and cancer organizations and healthcare providers. Or get online support from our online community for prostate cancer.


_{Photo: Paul Keleher, Flickr, Creative Commons}

A novel prostate cancer vaccine may become the first approved cancer treatment vaccine in the United States. The Seattle-based biotechnology company Dendreon announced today that their treatment vaccine called Provenge “significantly prolongs survival in men with advanced prostate cancer.” A clinical trial of 512 men with metastatic prostate cancer showed that the vaccine significantly improved the odds of survival from prostate cancer compared to a placebo.

Provenge is a therapeutic or treatment vaccine, where a drug stimulates the patient’s own immune system to fight prostate cancer cells. The drug is produced from a patient's own cells and is used when testosterone hormone blockers are no longer effective. Therapeutic vaccines do not prevent disease like traditional vaccines do but rather they stimulate the patient’s own immune system to attack cancer cells after they have already developed.

If approved later this year, Provenge could be first cancer treatment vaccine in the United States. Two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined to approve the drug at that time and elected to wait for the results of the clinical trial that were briefly described today. The full clinical trials results will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association on April 28th in Chicago.

Cancer vaccines can be used to prevent cancer or to treat cancer. To date, the FDA has approved two vaccines that prevent cancer--a vaccine against the hepatitis B virus that causes liver cancer and a vaccine against human papillomavirus, which accounts for most cases of cervical cancer. If approved by the FDA, Provenge could be the first approved cancer treatment vaccine.

Many scientists believe that cancer treatment vaccines are a much more precise and less dangerous method to treat cancer compared to traditional chemotherapy where massive doses of potentially toxic drugs are used.

Learn more about the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer at Healia or ask our health professionals or medical students a question about prostate cancer.


_{Photo: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public domain}

Radio personality Don Imus revealed Monday that he has stage 2 prostate cancer. He announced the news on his syndicated radio show "Imus in the Morning" and went on to say that he is confident he can beat the disease with help from his doctors.

The 68 year old Imus also stated that he thought his cancer may be related to stress, perhaps an allusion to his firing from CBS radio in 2007 over comments he made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. A doctor for the American Cancer Society reacted by saying that while studies show that a person’s ability to fight cancer is impacted by stress, there are no studies demonstrating that stress has a role in actually causing cancer.

Stage 2 prostate cancer is defined as cancer that has spread through the prostate but not outside of it. It has a relatively good cure rate with proper treatment. Almost 99 percent of men whose prostate cancer is diagnosed in stage 2 live for 5 years, while between 65 and 90 percent survive 10 years beyond their diagnosis. Treatment for stage 2 prostate cancer ranges from "watching and waiting" to removal of the prostate along with radiation therapy.

For more information about prostate cancer, join the Healia Support Group for Prostate Cancer.

_{Photo: williacw, Flickr, Creative Commons}

The rate of new cancer cases in the U.S. appears to be dropping for the first time, according to a report released this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In addition, cancer death rates continue to fall steadily as they have for several years thanks to improvements in both cancer detection and treatment.

The annual "Report to the Nation" on cancer shows that the rate of new cancer diagnoses among men dropped 1.8 percent a year between 2001 and 2005, while the rate for women dropped just over half a percent a year. The drop was seen across all racial groups examined. Also, the cancer death rate among men and women continued to drop, by an average of 1.8 percent a year through 2005. However, cancer remains the second leading cause of death for Americans with only heart disease claiming more lives.

Much of the gains were made in the rates of some leading cancers including breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. The declines are largely due to increases in cancer screening, and for breast cancer, to a decrease in the use of hormone replacement therapy. Lung cancer rates also decreased but only for men, likely because smoking rates fell for men before they did for women, which allowed men to reap the benefits sooner. In contrast, the rates of lung cancer in women, kidney cancer, melanoma, and several others cancer types continue to rise.

While the declines in cancer rates were small, most between one and four percent, the fact that death rates continue to fall as well suggests that the improvements are real, rather than caused by, for example, people skipping screening appointments, allowing existing cancers to go undetected.

Experts question whether the gains can be maintained in the face of the economic downturn. Declining budgets for cancer research and decreased adherence to cancer screening and surveillance programs threaten to reverse the trend, just as the milestone of a decline in overall cancer rate is finally being attained.

If you are concerned about your cancer risk, talk to your doctor about what you can be doing to decrease your risk. Read the American Cancer Society guidelines for the early detection of cancer at the American Cancer Society’s Website. To get personalized answers to your questions about cancer, ask the experts on Healia Health Communities or join the Healia Health Community for Cancers.

 

_{Photo: DefMo, Flickr, Creative Commons}

Vitamin E and the mineral selenium do not prevent prostate cancer, according to a large study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) was halted early after a preliminary analysis of the data showed that these supplements, taken alone or together, did not reduce prostate cancer risk among more than 35,000 men age 50 and older who were studied.

Of more concern, the study suggested that the two supplements may carry an increased risk to men’s health: men who were taking only vitamin E showed a small increase in the number of prostate cancer cases, and those taking only selenium had a slight increase in the incidence of diabetes. However, these findings are still preliminary and they were not statistically significant, meaning that they could have been caused by chance.

Study participants are being notified by a letter that they should stop taking the supplements but will continue to have their health monitored for about three more years.

The findings are a major disappointment after previous studies suggested that Vitamin E might lower prostate cancer risk by more than 30 percent and selenium by over 50 percent. A drug called finasteride that is currently used to treat an enlarged prostate and male pattern baldness was recently shown to reduce the incidence of prostate cancer by 25 percent, but is not currently approved by the FDA as a preventative agent.

The doses involved in the study were higher than what is found in a typical multivitamin: 400mg/day vitamin E (the recommended daily intake is 15mg) and 200mcg/day selenium (U.S. RDI is 50-75mcg).

If you are currently taking daily vitamin E or selenium supplements, talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of continuing their use. Or ask the health experts on Healia Health Communities.

 

_{Photo: Twenty Questions, Flickr, Creative Commons}

 

Earlier this month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health experts sponsored by the Federal government to develop guidelines for preventive medicine, stated that the risks of prostate cancer screening among men older than 75 years outweighed the benefits to them. The rationale was that prostate cancer grows very slowly among older men and, as a result, most will die of causes other than prostate cancer.

And, to add more controversy to this issue, the American College of Preventive Medicine stated in January 2008 that there was “insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine population prostate screening.”

These conclusions will no doubt cause a lot of confusion and uncertainty among men and some healthcare professionals. It is likely that men will need to consult with their doctors about whether they should be screened given their specific medical history and health status.

Prostate cancer is the leading cancer among American men. Screening for prostate cancer consists of the digital rectal examination and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. The risks of excessive screening include anxiety and potential harm from unnecessary surgery and radiation therapy to some men whose cancers do not need to be treated.

Have a question about prostate cancer or screening? Ask members of the Healia Prostate Cancer Community.