Prostate Cancer Break Through (even without marathons and pink ribbons;-)

Findings identify likely origins of prostate cancer

By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY Fri Oct 28, 7:08 AM ET

Researchers have found a set of genes that may play a key role in
prostate cancer - a discovery that doctors are hailing as a major
breakthrough that changes the way they think about the genetic roots of
the disease.

If further research confirms these findings, published Friday in the
journal Science, the discovery eventually might lead to better tests
for prostate cancer as well as targeted therapies, says one of the
study's authors, Mark Rubin, chief of urologic pathology at Brigham and
Women's Hospital in Boston.

"This is amazing," says Michael Heinrich, a professor at the Oregon
Health & Science University Cancer Institute, who was not involved in
the study. "This is the Rosetta Stone of prostate cancer. Cracking the
code lets you read the whole library. The implications of this are huge
in a lot of different ways."

Prostate cancer afflicts 232,000 men a year.

Until now, doctors thought it was the result of lots of random genetic
mutations, Heinrich says. This study, however, suggests for the first
time that prostate cancer begins after specific genes fuse, forming a
sort of two-headed monster.

Doctors found these merged genes in nearly 80% of 29 prostate cancer
samples, says Arul Chinnaiyan, a professor at the University of
Michigan Medical School who directed the study. None of the 50 samples
of non-cancerous tissue had the genes, he says.

This may allow doctors to begin to divide prostate cancer - which is
now treated as a single disease - into different types. Doctors have
been treating breast cancer this way for years: They prescribe the drug
Herceptin to women whose tumors make too much of certain protein, and
they give the drug tamoxifen to those whose tumors respond to hormones.

So far, Chinnaiyan and his colleagues have found fused genes only in
prostate tissue. They are trying to see whether they can detect the
genes in blood or urine, which could allow them to develop a more
accurate diagnostic test for prostate cancer.

Chinnaiyan also hopes the genes will tell doctors which tumors are
deadly and require aggressive treatment. That could allow men whose
tumors are relatively harmless to avoid treatment and its side effects.
Doctors now have few good ways to tell these men apart, leading about
half to undergo unnecessary therapy, says Otis Brawley, medical
director of Grady Health System's Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence.

Chinnaiyan says his discovery may allow doctors to develop new
treatments. Chronic myeloid leukemia patients can live for years
without serious side effects thanks to the drug Gleevec, which was
developed after scientists discovered the cancer's genetic roots.

Brian Druker, the scientist who developed Gleevec, says it could take
years or even decades to develop a targeted therapy for prostate
cancer. But these genes at least give scientists a target - a critical
first step. "This is incredibly important," Druker said in an e-mail.
"Finding the cause gives us hope for finding a cure."

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