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PROSTATE CANCER NEWSLETTER - NOVEMBER 2008

Statins Lower Blood Marker for Prostate Cancer

A new study shows that men who take cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins have lower blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a biomarker for prostate cancer risk.
That drop in PSA levels doesn't necessarily mean the drugs protect against disease however, researchers say.

But it's possible that statins may offer some protection against the disease, said Dr. Robert Hamilton, one author of the report in the Oct. 28 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. He worked on the study while a research fellow at Duke University; he is now a urology resident at the University of Toronto.e.

Review of Prostate Cancer Prevention Study Shows No Benefit for Use of Selenium and Vitamin E Supplements

Initial, independent review of study data from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health shows that selenium and vitamin E supplements, taken either alone or together, did not prevent prostate cancer.

The data also showed two concerning trends: a small but not statistically significant increase in the number of prostate cancer cases among the over 35,000 men age 50 and older in the trial taking only vitamin E and a small, but not statistically significant increase in the number of cases of adult onset diabetes in men taking only selenium.

Because this is an early analysis of the data from the study, neither of these findings proves an increased risk from the supplements and both may be due to chance.

New Prostates Grown From Single Stem Cell

Using just a single adult stem cell, scientists say they have grown entire prostates in mice.
This feat was made possible by the identification of a genetic signature distinguishing stem cells from other types of cells, according to a report in the Oct. 23 issue of Nature.
This information still has to be confirmed in humans, but understanding normal cells should eventually lead to an understanding of how prostate cancer develops.

"It's another step showing that stem cells can be a root case of a cancer . . . so it gives targets for treatment," said Dr. Darwin Prockop, the Stearman Chair in Genomic Medicine, a professor of molecular and cellular medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, and director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White in Temple, Texas.

"This provides ways to understand prostate cancer that might be related to stem cells," added Paul Sanberg, distinguished professor of neurosurgery and director of the University of South Florida Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair in Tampa.
Stem cells have the ability to differentiate into many types of cells in the body. As such, they hold the promise of leading to treatments, and possibly, one day, even cures for neurological and many other diseases.

Obesity, Insulin Level Impact Prostate Cancer Survival

Heavy men with high output of the hormone had quadruple the death risk, study found

Men who are overweight and who have high insulin levels when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer may be more likely to die from the disease, research shows.

This striking finding, published early online and expected to be in the November issue of The Lancet Oncology, is yet more reason to continue fighting the battle of the bulge, experts say.

"I don't want to be sensationalist, but obesity effects and the insulin effects are so big that I think if you had to choose between being thin and having a low insulin level or having access to the best chemotherapy, you would be more likely to survive without chemotherapy," said study senior author Dr. Michael Pollak, professor of oncology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.