Wednesday, March 18, 2009

prostate cancer news!

Cancer. It's an ugly thing that affects us all- yes, all of us. Whether it be through a friend, family member, co-worker, acquaintance, or a personal experience, we've all been affected by cancer. As many of you already know, I work in clinical cancer research and today something really BIG, in regards to a project I work on, was announced to the public! But before I get to that I want to go back to this word, "cancer".

What is cancer exactly?? Cancer occurs when the normal, healthy cells in your body begin to multiply and grow out of control. These rowdy cells become like big bullies and push out the healthy cells. Not all cancers are equal and they progress in different ways depending on the cells, the tumors that form, and the location of the original site of the cancer. Cancers can spread to other organs and cause problems in seemingly unrelated parts of the body without explanation.

What most people don't realize is that cells naturally go awry everyday in our body without us knowing it. Cells have life cycles just like everything else in nature. When a cell's life is up, either because it was damaged or just at the end of its' life, it is magically programmed by nature to die on its' own. This is called apoptosis, also known as "cell suicide". Regular cells in our body do this everyday. Cancer cells, however, are selfish and ignore their built-in instructions to undergo apoptosis. Instead, they grow and grow and grow (sometimes rapidly, sometimes slow) until we stop them. This is where cancer treatment (i.e. radiation, chemotherapy) come into play.

Preventing cancer is obviously better than getting or treating cancer, which is why there is such a big emphasis in health care on regular cancer screenings. One of the research studies I work on is called the Prostate, Lung, Colon and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. Today some very important results of this trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and are popping up in headlines around the globe on the news because of their importance.

The BIG news...

More than 75,000 men were in enrolled in the PLCO Trial where 1/2 were assigned to 10 years of annual prostate screenings and 1/2 were assigned to follow their usual health care routine, without any recommendation for or against undergoing prostate screenings. The results showed that after 7-10 years of following the participants there wasn't a significant difference in the rate of death of prostate cancer between the two groups. Put more simply, the men who did get the annual prostate screenings didn't fare better than the men who didn't have the screenings.

I would highly encourage you to click on the links below and read more about this for a better explanation and more details. It's also important to remember that this isn't the final word on this topic and it doesn't mean that men shouldn't have prostate screens. What it does mean is that it's complicated and men (and women) need to be informed of the issues and discuss it with their doctors. To my Ladies out there... we might not have prostates but we surely know a fella that does and that we care enough about to inform them of what's going on in the world. Can I get an AMEN?! :-)

I'm proud to be working on and contributing to such important research and hope you'll take the time to read the links below or watch the news tonight and in the next coming days to learn more.

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