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Archive for the ‘Prostate Cancer’ Category
Peter Nelson on Canary’s Prostate Cancer Research Program
June 18, 2012
Peter Nelson, Prostate Cancer Team Leader at the Canary Center and researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, provides an overview of Canary’s Prostate Cancer Research Program. He talks about goals for the research program, explaining how researchers work on biomarkers that will determine if cancers are lethal vs. non lethal (aggressive vs. indolent). He also explains the Canary Tissue Microarray (TMA) Project, as well as giving an overview of what success looks like for the Canary Prostate Cancer Research Program.
Canary Innovation: Measurable Progress, Real Results
June 4, 2012
Here at Canary Foundation, one of our highest priorities is building a culture of innovation, which we leverage to produce results, save time and lower costs. Both our scientific programs and administrative initiatives reflect these disciplines. We’re proud to report that this approach is helping Canary demonstrate real results in the work we do:
- Canary Foundation developed the first test for a new lung cancer biomarker identified by the team. While tests
exist for other biomarkers, there were none for this one, so the team created a test that is now available for any research institution to utilize. - Our prostate cancer clinical trial called PASS (Prostate Active Surveillance Study) is the only multisite clinical trial for men on active surveillance. This way of organizing a trial is now being recognized as the most viable way of conducting trials to monitor men with localized, low-risk prostate cancer.
- Canary Foundation’s Tissue Microarray (TMA) project has also led the way in scientific research. Digitized tissue images and a standardized way to conduct digital analyses were the innovations that provide researchers with an online way of sharing and analyzing data that is not the norm in scientific research.
- The Canary Center at Stanford for cancer early detection is the first in the world studying the two-test process of identifying cancer through a blood test and pinpointing the location of the tumor through molecular imaging. More »
Highlights from the 8th Annual Early Detection Symposium 2012
May 7, 2012
Canary Foundation held the Eighth Annual Early Detection Symposium at Stanford University on May 1, 2012. Nearly 200 participants came together to share their successes, challenges, and visions for the field of early detection of cancer. The conference session included updates from four Canary cancer teams (Lung, Ovary, Pancreas and Prostate) as well as presentations on innovative early detection research from across the country. Dr. Sam Gambhir, Director of the Canary Center at Stanford, described the goals of early detection in three key phrases:
- Identify patients that have cancer
- Isolate the location of the tumor
- Intervene effectively
Attendees heard from researchers working in all three of these areas.
Tackling the Challenge of Overdiagnosis
One of the challenges in identifying cancer patients is avoiding overtreatment. Dr. Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, an expert on PSA screening, dissected
the recently released guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force stating that the harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer outweigh the benefits. Dr. Etzioni presented the case for “smart” PSA screening. Current PSA screening practice results in overdiagnosis and overtreatment of men with less aggressive disease. Smart screening strategies such as age-specific PSA cutoffs combined with biennial screening could potentially reduce the amount of overdiagnosis by one third while retaining the lives saved by annual screening. Smart screening coupled with active surveillance could be of great value in reducing mortality with a much more acceptable ratio of harm to benefit. More »
