Press
Welcome to the Prostate Cancer Translational Research Meeting!
Prostate cancer is still a major health concern in the Western male population. It is the most common male malignancy in most European countries with 346,000 new cases diagnosed each year in Europe.
Research efforts have increased steadily over the past two decades.
However the funding of cancer is research is very competitive. It is, therefore, of particular importance that within the European Union based framework programme many prostate cancer consortia were funded in the last 5 years totaling approximately € 40 million. In all the above efforts the translation of our understanding of prostate cancer development and progression to the bedside of the patient plays a pivotal role. It is time to present the highlights of these efforts in a unique event entitled 'Prostate Cancer Translational Research in Europe'. The unifying theme is how today’s research will change the diagnosis and therapy of prostate cancer in the immediate future.
A good example is the European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) which has been ongoing since the early 1990s. ERSPC is the world’s largest prostate cancer screening study and provides robust, independently audited evidence, for the first time, of the effect of screening on prostate cancer mortality. The results were recently unveiled at the 24th Annual EAU Congress: screening can reduce deaths by 20%. This may directly influence national government’s health policies and, of course, the choices men make.
The European Association of Urology provides an excellent forum to disseminate knowledge in specialized meetings. Therefore, the EAU Research Foundation has taken the initiative for this meeting. Top speakers were recruited from European Union framework programmes and we will invite researchers, EU officials and those representing the patient advocacy groups to attend. Furthermore, US based scientists will join to see how we can improve ‘across the pond’ collaboration.
The following 8 consortia will be present:
• PRIMA (PRostate cancer Integral Management Approach)
• P-Mark (A quest for new diagnostic and prognostic markers for prostate cancer)
• Giant (Gene therapy: an Integrated Approach to Neoplastic Treatment)
• Polygene (Identification of common genetic variants that affect the risk of breast and prostate cancer)
• PROMET (PROstate cancer Molecular-oriented detEction and Treatment of minimal residual disease)
• PROMARK (Genetic prostate cancer variants as biomarkers of disease progression)
• CANCURE (Cancer Cure)
• ProspeR (Prostate cancer: profiling and evaluation of ncRNA)
Furthermore, a new project - part of the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme - will be announced. PRO-NEST is the combination and continuation of the PRIMA, P-Mark and CANCURE projects and is scheduled to start in September 2009. It is one of the largest projects in the programme, totalling 17 partners and 24 positions for young researchers.
As a follow-up of the European Randomised Study on Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) results, which show that prostate cancer screening does save lives, this meeting is another step forward to individualised treatment. Which patient should have a biopsy and which patient should not? In the end this will result in large savings in the healthcare sector. At the moment treatment is not optimal since the use of new biomarkers in Europe often hampered by financial considerations. On Monday 22 June at 17:00 hours a press conference entitled 'Individualised treatment at your doorstep' will be hosted by Professor Jack Schalken (Radboud University Nijmegen). We will be inviting Profs John Isaacs, Hans Lilja, Louis Denis and Jan Trapman to be there, as well as representatives of the consortia.
If you are interested in free participation, please contact Lindy Brouwer at l.brouwer@uroweb.org.
