MEDIWATCH: October 2010

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Gala dinner raises £10,000 for Surrey urology services

23 October 2010

Nearly £10,000 has been raised to advance the diagnosis, treatment and management of prostate cancer and other urological conditions in Surrey.

The money was raised at a gala dinner held at Wentworth Golf Club, in Virginia Water, in aid of Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Trust.

The event was part of the new Golf Marathon charity initiative, aiming to raise £1m to fund new services.

Funds were also raised by golfers playing a sponsored round of golf.

The Golf Marathon event was supported by comedian Ronnie Corbett

The gala dinner was attended by comedian Ronnie Corbett, who provided the entertainment.

'Important message'

After dinner auction prizes included donated gifts from David Beckham, John Terry, Nick Faldo and Sam Torrance as well as rounds of golf with various celebrities including Corbett, Tom O'Connor and Jodie Kidd.

The Golf Marathon aims to support several new services at Ashford and St Peter's hospitals, including a laser to treat kidney stones and certain types of kidney cancer.

Justin Collins, urology consultant, said: "We wanted to work with local golf clubs because of the demographics and the fact that most members of a club will know someone with a urological problem.

"Also, they are great socialising networks and a good way to spread an important message about how urological diseases, such as prostate cancer, kidney stones and bladder cancer affect so many people."

Gala dinner raises £10,000 for Surrey urology services

NEWS-Week Ending 31st October(Updated-2 Posts)

Health board looking at privatising urology work New Zealand-28th October

$1 Million Fundraising Goal For Prostate Cancer Set By Movember Edmonton Canada-26th October

Thursday 21 October 2010

October-The Music,Film and Odd Joke spot

Los Pistoleros - Swinging with The Chickens

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Mediwatch Product Update-Biofeedback (Venus Clinic)

This system is only available in the USA at the present time and a 'data sheet' has now been added to the Mediwatch website:

Tuesday 19 October 2010

NEWS-Week Ending 24th October (Updated-2 Posts)

4% increase in new cancer cases UK (England)-21st October

Tache for Cash - Movember is coming UK-18th October

MOVEMBER Is on it's way again!

Thursday 14 October 2010

Urine-based test for a protein called MSMB

If you just read the media reports (for example, from Reuters, from the BBC or from The Daily Telegraph) you might get the idea that a new urine-based test for a protein called MSMB is vastly better at detecting prostate cancer than the PSA test. Sorry, but that is not actually the case at all.
To get an accurate understanding, you need to look at the full text of the actual article by Whitaker et al. in the on-line journal PLoS One.

What Ms. Whitaker and her colleagues have shown is that in men who carry a specific gene (the risk allele rs10993994), a protein known as microseminoprotein-β (MSMB) is significantly less likely to be found in the urine of men who have prostate cancer (or prostate intraepithelial neoplasia [PIN]) than it is in men with only benign prostate tissue. We already knew that the presence of rs10993994 is associated with increased risk for prostate cancer.

Whitaker et al. also were able to show that testing for MSMB in urine is a better indicator for prostate cancer risk than testing for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in urine, but it is not better than testing for PSA in serum (the normal method of testing for PSA). And there is some evidence that the concentration of MSMB in urine may be associated with the Gleason score of a cancer in an individual patient who expresses the rs10993994 risk allele.

It is also important to understand, however, that Kader et al. have already shown that once prostate cancer tumors have developed, expression of rs10993994 has little effect on disease progression. The implication is that any increase in risk associated with expression of rs10993994 and MSMB affects the benign prostate gland and only the initial stages of tumor development

Let us be very clear. This is an interesting scientific finding. It demonstrates that there is the potential to link genetic signals of risk for prostate cancer to clinical signals of risk (expression or non-expression of a specific protein). It would also allow us to combine data on the presence/absence of MSMB in urine with data from other tests to assess risk for prostate cancer in particular individuals. Most specifically, it would theoretically help to be able to identify a subset of men who are at risk for prostate cancer long before there might be any evidence of disease based on a biopsy. However, even if everything were to go well, it may take 5 or more years to gain regulatory approval for such a test, and we would need additional information about it’s accuracy. Some initial testing on actual patients has already been initiated at one of the major UK prostate cancer clinical research centers.

Link to above article:

Is MSMB the next great thing in prostate cancer testing?

and from the UK Prostate Cancer Charity:

The Prostate Cancer Charity comments on new research into the MSMB protein as a potential marker for prostate cancer

The Prostate Cancer Charity comments on new research published in PLoS ONE, which suggests that microseminoprotein-beta (MSMB), a common protein found in semen, could provide an indication of a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer.

Dr Kate Holmes, Research Manager at The Prostate Cancer Charity, explains: “These preliminary results show that MSMB, a protein produced by the prostate gland, is found at significantly lower levels in the urine of men diagnosed with prostate cancer than those without the disease. The study also found that men with an aggressive tumour were also likely to have lower levels of the protein in their urine.”

She continued: “The study suggests that measuring levels of this protein could potentially be a powerful way to predict how likely a man is to develop prostate cancer. However, further research on a much larger scale is needed to determine how effective the detection of MSMB in the urine is for predicting the risk of, and potentially even diagnosing, prostate cancer.

“Given the known limitations of the PSA blood test, finding a technique to accurately diagnose prostate cancer is the Holy Grail of research into the disease, which is why these results are potentially exciting. More needs to be understood about MSMB, such as whether it is linked to non-cancerous prostate diseases. Once we have more information, we can better evaluate whether detecting levels of MSMB has a useful role in diagnosing prostate cancer. An accurate, reliable urine test for prostate cancer would be an invaluable tool if it is proven to be successful on a large scale.”

Monday 11 October 2010

Abiraterone

This has nothing to do with Mediwatch but of interest all the same.

"11 October 2010

The Prostate Cancer Charity comments on latest research into abiraterone
The Prostate Cancer Charity comments on the interim results of a phase III trial into the prostate cancer drug abiraterone, which has been shown to extend the lives of men living with advanced disease by an average of almost four months.

John Neate, Chief Executive at The Prostate Cancer Charity, explains: “These initial findings are particularly important as they offer new hope to men diagnosed with an advanced form of prostate cancer who can quickly run out of treatment options once their tumour stops responding to the existing methods of controlling its progression.

“The results of the trial conducted in over 1,000 men across 13 countries, indicate that abiraterone is able to prolong the lives of men living with the most advanced stages of the disease by an average of almost four months. What is particularly encouraging is that men taking the drug did not generally experience significant side effects, such as those normally associated with chemotherapy treatment.”

He continued: “Abiraterone represents a significant move forward in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer for some time. To date, the full results of this study are yet to be published and reviewed. We look forward to seeing these results and hope that they will provide the robust evidence necessary for abiraterone to be licensed and made generally available on the NHS to all men who need it.”"

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"Abiraterone acetate extends median survival by 3.9 months in mCRPC

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Sitemaster

The results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center, Phase III clinical trial comparing abiraterone actetate + prednisone to a placebo + prednisone in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) were presented today at the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Milan, Italy.

This first Phase III trial of abiraterone acetate, initiated in early 2008, enrolled 1,195 men with mCRPC who had progressive prostate cancer following one or two courses of chemotherapy, including one course of docetaxel-based chemotherapy.

Patients could not have received prior treatment with ketoconazole, abiraterone acetate, any other drug that acts as a CYP17 inhibitor, or any other investigational drug that targets the androgen receptor. They also had to have an ECOG performance status of 0 to 2. Eligible patients were enrolled at 147 clinical sites in Australia, Europe, the USA, and Canada.

The key data presented by Dr. de Bono on behalf of the investigators are as follows:

•Patients were randomized in a 2:1 fashion, with 797 patients randomized to abiraterone acetate + prednisone and 398 patients randomized to a placebo + prednisone.
•Patients treated with abiraterone + prednisone had a 35 percent reduction in their risk of death (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.65) compared to those receiving a placebo + prednisone.
•Median survival of patients receiving abiraterone was 14.8 months compared to 10.9 months for those receiving the placebo.
•Time to disease progression was 10.2 months among those on abiraterone and 6.6 months for the placebo patients.
•The two most evident adverse effects of abiraterone acetate + prednisone were fluid retention and hypokalemia (elevated potassium levels).
•Most adverse events of abiraterone acetate + prednisone appear to be manageable and do not include any of the classic side effects of chemotherapy.
Marketing applications for abiraterone in the U.S. and Europe are scheduled to be filed by the end of this year. Additional details about the results of the trial are available in a media release from subsidiaries of Johnson & Johnson.

Abiraterone acetate becomes the second drug this year to demonstrate a clear median survival benefit in men with mCRPC and with progressive disease after treatment with docetaxel-based chemotherapy, representing a practice-changing advance in the management of late-stage prostate cancer."

The "New" Prostate Cancer InfoLink

Wednesday 6 October 2010

FUTURE EVENTS AND LATEST NEWS(Updated 11th October)

Latest News/Website Updates

Growing Companies Investor Days 2010 UK-Birmingham, 14 October 2010

Director's Shareholding 6th October 2010

Director's Shareholding 5th October 2010

TR-1: NOTIFICATION OF MAJOR INTEREST IN SHARES 1st October 2010

Trading Update 1st October 2010

Mediwatch Positions/Jobs

Mediwatch Training Courses

Future Events

Events where Mediwatch are attending/exhibiting will be marked as so or updated,hopefully before the event is finished.More Events to add later