International Conference on Prostate Cancer 2006 Reston, Virginia Oct 19 – 22 Reported by David S. Most, Ph.D. INTRODUCTION Our normal practice in the past has been to immediately plunge into summarizing and highlighting the significant content of each Presentation at the Conference. For this year’s events we will take a little different approach. This OVERVIEW will take a look at the whole event and present the author’s view of what it all meant. What was new? What was significant? And lastly, what lesson(s) were carried away from the event. Dr. Charles Myers, Medical Oncologist who operates his practice under the name “American Institute for Diseases of the Prostate” is the prime sponsor of the event. Consequently, the invited presenters were all chosen by him and represented a wide range of sub-disciplines that relate to prostate cancer and its therapy. This Conference is held annually and is co-sponsored by Us Too International Prostate Support Group. Primary funding was provided by a grant from the Dattoli Foundation of Sarasota, Fl, with additional funding provided by Berlex Oncology, PAACT, Inc., Virginia Prostate Cancer Coalition, Abbott Labs, Cytogen, Amgen, Endocare, Life Extension, TAP Pharmaceuticals, Aureon Labs, and Dr. Smith’s own practice, American Institute for Cancer Research. The businesses represented by this range of funders, included makers of many of the drugs involved in hormonal blockade therapy, the maker of a modern generation of cryosurgery equipment, the maker of a scanning system to track post primary therapy PSA recurrences, and Dr. Smith’s own private practice, the AICR. OVERVIEW Diagnostics: In the area of diagnostics, Dr. David Bostwick of Bostwick Laboratories discussed some advances in prostate cancer markers that will greatly enhance the utility of the PSA measurement that has been the “gold standard’ for some 20 years; and this despite its many shortcomings. He reviewed a urine test that shows great promise of combining high specificity with high selectivity in the order of 80%. Such levels are remarkable for biosystems as complex as humans. We expect to see more and more widespread usage of this test as time goes on. It’s called the PCA3 Plus test. In addition to the potential value of the PCA3 Plus test, he talked about the value of Racemase in confirming cancer on a biopsy slide. An even newer approach, called gene fusion, was discussed which allows the analyst to find even smaller levels of PCa in biopsy slides. So breakthroughs in prostate cancer diagnosis are moving ahead rapidly and we can expect to see them in the market place sometime within the next three years. Much work is being done in gene expression as well as protein expression. The thrust of this kind of research is to try to establish differences in levels of selected genes (in the one case) and selected proteins in the second case. The hypotheses that are being tested in these projects state that tissues or serum from patients with a given cancer will show either a significantly greater level of expression of a gene or combination of genes in the cancer example when compared to the level(s) in the non-cancer specimen. Sometimes it may be the lack or diminished quantity of these genes that is determined. For proteomics, the concept is the same. Determine the levels of a selected range of proteins and measure their concentrations in the patient with the cancer. Then compare these results to the same kind of sample in patients without any cancer to establish differential levels. Dr. Harry Burke, of Bostwick Labs was to give a talk on this subject but coldn’t make the event so Dr. Bostwick presented a discussion on the subject. We can expect to see significant breakthroughs in this field because microbiologists and geneticists and medical researchers have increasingly powerful tools at their disposal that enable them to deal with very complex mixtures of either proteins or other genetic materials. Dr. Gary Onik Color Doppler & Saturation Biopsy Screening for Pca - Pros/Cons Dr. Michael Dattoli, Intl Prostate Ca Conf, October 2006 October 2006 Intl Prostate Ca Conf Intl Prostate Ca Conf, October 2006 Gary Onik, MD Intl Prostate Ca Conf, October 2006 October 27, 2006 Intl Prostate Cancer Conference October 27, 2006 Intl Prostate Cancer Conference Mark Scholtz, Intl Prostate Conference October 2006 International Prostate Cancer Conference, 2006 Intl Prostate Cancer Conference 10/06 Intl Prostate Cancer Conference, 10/06 Intl Prostate Cancer Conference, 10/06 Intl Prostate Cancer Conferece, 10/06 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.