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SAN ANTONIO - Researchers here hope to enroll 10,000 men in an important new study that seeks to answer some major lingering questions about prostate cancer, the most common cancer to strike males.
The goal of the San Antonio-based study is to improve screening and early detection of prostate cancer, identify new biochemical clues to the disease and answer questions about the link between diet and prostate cancer, according to the researchers involved.
``Guys are at risk for this disease; your lifetime risk is about one in six,'' said Dr. Ian Thompson, professor of surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the lead investigator of the study. ``Prostate cancer has no symptoms. And it appears that early detection makes a difference.''
The San Antonio Biomarkers of Risk for Prostate Cancer study, or SABOR, is open to all men over 50, black men over 40 and men over 40 who have a family history of prostate cancer.
Participants will receive annual digital rectal exams and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screenings. Study subjects also will answer questions about diet and give blood samples for analysis.
The Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore also will participate in a prostate cancer study funded by the National Cancer Institute.
``San Antonio is a mirror of the U.S. This is, ethnicity wise, a very rich resource for a biomarkers study,'' said Sudhir Srivastava, chief of the cancer biomarkers research group at the National Cancer Institute.
The prostate is a small gland behind the bladder that secretes the seminal fluid that carries sperm. Prostate cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers in the United States and the most common cancer among men.
The American Cancer Society estimates 198,100 new cases will be diagnosed this year.
Black men have a disproportionate risk. Their prostate cancer death rate is twice that of white men, according to the National Cancer Institute. Hispanic men have a lower incidence of death.
``We don't understand all that, and one of the goals of SABOR is to be able to distinguish those risks,'' Thompson said.
Prostate cancer usually is a slow-growing cancer, and most patients die with the disease rather than from it. Still, some tumors will grow more aggressively, and doctors still do not know how to tell which tumors are more likely to metastasize, or spread.
An estimated 31,500 men will die this year from prostate cancer that spread to other organs, making it the second leading cause of cancer death among men.
``Once it is in the lymph nodes or the bone, we can extend survival, but most of these men will eventually die of prostate cancer,'' Thompson said.
One of the larger goals of the study will be to find new markers, or biochemical clues, that can tell doctors which patients have early signs of the disease or are most at risk of developing it.
The PSA test looks for elevated levels of a certain protein that can signal changes in the prostate.
``We're hoping to find not just one biomarker but many biomarkers to help us distinguish between patients,'' Srivastava said.
``We also have a tremendous number of hypotheses to test about nutrition,'' Thompson said, noting a number of studies have pointed to links between prostate cancer and levels of fats, selenium and vitamin E.
(The Hearst Newspapers Web site is at
http://www.hearstcorp.com/news.html.)
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