FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 3, 2010               
CONTACT: Linwood Norman 202-303-3125
                                                                                                                                  

ZERO’s CEO Skip Lockwood to Perform
‘Prostate Polar Plunge’ in the Potomac Feb. 4

‘Manuary’ Succeeds in Surpassing $20K Goal

In the non-profit world where fundraising can always be a challenge, it’s not altogether surprising what some organization leaders will do in the name of their mission.

Such was the challenge put forth by Skip Lockwood in asking the prostate cancer community to raise $20,000 as part of last month’s “Manuary” campaign, in which men can do manly things in January (and part of being a man is knowing the importance of getting tested each year for prostate cancer). 

If the goal was reached, Lockwood promised to plunge like a polar bear in the Potomac.

In the final week of January, though, with the goal still several thousands of dollars short, Lockwood was feeling confident he would not have to embrace the frigid waters of the Potomac.

That changed in the final two days of January, when the fundraising thermometer suddenly shot upward. The $20K goal was exceeded, with contributions coming in from across the U.S., so now it’s time for Lockwood to pay it to the piper.

BE THERE TO SEE IT:

WHO:             Skip Lockwood
                         CEO of ZERO – The Project to End Prostate Cancer

WHAT:           Prostate Polar Plunge in the Potomac

WHEN:          10:00 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 4

WHERE:       Oronoco Bay Park
                         100 Madison St.
                         Alexandria, Virginia

###

FY2011 Appropriations Cycle Begins

by Kevin Johnson, ZERO Senior Vice President of Public Policy | 02.02.2010

With the release of the President’s Budget on February 1, the FY2011 budget cycle has
officially begun.  Throughout the rest of this week, the Appropriations
Committees in the House and Senate will receive detailed budget justifications
from the various Federal agencies and departments about their direction and
focus beginning on October 1.

While the NIH budget is of great importance to advancing research for prostate cancer, as
advocates, our best opportunity to impact funding at a Federal program level is
by supporting the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program generally,
and the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) specifically at the Department
of Defense.

The PCRP funds high-risk high reward research that pushes the boundaries of our
understanding of how and why cancer develops and progresses.  The program’s
peer-review process is one of the best in the world, so much so that it
includes survivors sitting at the table with researchers to determine which programs
should be awarded.

Soon, Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Representatives Jim
Marshall (D-GA08) and Pete King (R-NY03) will circulate “Dear Colleague”
letters in their respective chambers.  The letter asks for support from
other Members of Congress, including the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, to increase research funding for the PCRP to
$125 million in FY2011. (PCRP has been funded at $80 million for the past nine years
without an increase.)

While the letters have not begun circulating on the Hill as yet, it’s not too early to
write your Congressman and Senators to support this important effort to
increase funding for the PCRP for the first time since 2001.  Write your
Congressman and Senators today by clicking here.

National Institutes of Health Budget Is Presented for FY 2011

On February 1, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
presented the proposed NIH FY2011 budget to a group of advocate organizations
representing a wide variety of health and research issues.

Dr. Collins expressed optimism about the proposed $1 billion (3.2-percent) NIH budget
increase over FY2010, given the State of the Union address by President Obama
where he promised to present a budget representing no increases in
discretionary spending. Dr. Collins tempered his enthusiasm with the realism that, even with the proposed increase, NIH will “not be able to fund a lot of good research.”

Dr. Collins stressed five pillars which NIH used in its decision-making process to develop
the FY2011 budget:

1)   
High-Throughput
Technologies:  Funding research
that does not limit its scope to a single aspect of cell biology or physiology,
but is comprehensive in nature by, for example, defining all of the genes of
the human or a model organism, all of the human proteins and their structures,
all of the common variations in the genome, or all of the components of the
immune system.

2)   
Translational
Medicine:  Translating basic
discoveries into new diagnostic and treatment advances in the clinic.

3)   
Benefiting
Health Care Reform:  Showing how
research can benefit health care reform through comparative effectiveness,
prevention and personalized medicine, health disparities studies,
pharmacogenomics and health research economics.

4)   
Focus
on Global Health:  Including
neglected tropical diseases of low-income countries that contribute to
staggering levels of morbidity and mortality, by going beyond recent global
research that has focused on the “Big Three” diseases of AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria.

5)   
Reinvigorating
and Empowering the Biomedical Research Community: Trying to encourage
innovation with funding pioneer grants focused on high-risk, high-reward
research. Biomedical research, already stressed since the flat-line budget began
in 2003, will face more disruptions at the end of American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act funding in FY2011.  

In addition, Dr. Collins announced that cancer research is an area of particular
focus and has recommended a 4.4 percent increase (more than the overall 3.2 percent
NIH increase). This increase includes funding not just for the National Cancer Institute, but includes all cancer research spanning all of NIH. Click here to review the NIH budget request.

In Prostate CA, Sexual Decline After Radiation Has Limit

by Charles Bankhead | MedPage Today | 01.29.2010

Sexual function declines in the first two years after external beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer but stabilizes thereafter, according to data from a prospective cohort study.

All parameters of sexual function declined significantly (P<0.05) in the first two years after external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT), Richard Valicenti, MD, of the University of California Davis, and colleagues found.

But for years two through six of follow-up, none of the evaluated parameters of sexual function changed significantly.

Pretreatment sexual function was the strongest predictor of sexual function at any time after EBRT, the investigators reported in the January issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics.

Their findings debunk the perception that sexual function declines continually after radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

“The results of this study allow patients and their partners to have a fuller understanding of the long-term sexual side effects of EBRT, and what they can expect after treatment should aid in deciding on a treatment course,” Valicenti said in a statement.

Reported rates of impotency after EBRT for prostate cancer have ranged from 8% to 85%, a variation the authors attributed to the different instruments used to assess sexual function. Moreover, many studies included men who received androgen deprivation therapy in addition to EBRT, possibly masking the contributions of radiation therapy to changes in sexual function.

Several recent studies have suggested that rates of sexual dysfunction increase with follow-up. However, few studies included pretreatment assessment of sexual function or conducted serial assessments of sexual function after EBRT, the authors wrote.

To shed more light on the question, the investigators prospectively followed 143 men who completed a sexual function questionnaire prior to EBRT for prostate cancer and at each follow-up visit. The questionnaire assessed four domains of sexual function: sexual drive, erectile function, ejaculatory function, and overall satisfaction.

The mean age of the patients was 69, median Gleason score was 6, and median total radiation dose was 73.8 Gy (range of 66.6 to 79.2 Gy).

During a median four-years of follow-up, the study participants completed a total of 1,187 questionnaires. Some patients were followed for as long as eight years after EBRT.

Baseline scores for sexual drive and erectile function were significantly associated with patient age (P=0.003 and P=0.004, respectively). Ejaculatory function was significantly associated with age, race, and marital status (P<0.05).

Scores on all four domains of sexual function, as well as the total score, declined significantly in the first two years after EBRT (P<0.05) compared with baseline values.

Investigators grouped the patients according to baseline sexual function. Analysis of scores for patients above and below the median sexual function value showed that differences in sexual function persisted over time. Regression analysis showed that baseline score was the best predictor of later scores for all of the domains assessed (P<0.001).

A separate analysis of scores from years two through six showed no significant changes in any of the domains: sexual drive, P=0.067; erectile function, P=0.5; ejaculatory function, P=0.6; and overall satisfaction, P=0.44.

Baseline scores indicated that 74.1% of the study participants were sexually potent before EBRT. Among those who were potent before treatment, 74.4% remained potent at one year and 70.4% at two years after EBRT. The one- and two-year potency rates differed significantly from baseline, but the investigators found no statistically significant change in potency from years two through six.

“Our data have indicated that the widely held opinion that sexual function has a slow, progressive decline after EBRT might be incorrect,” the authors wrote in conclusion. “Most sexual function decline in men undergoing EBRT for prostate cancer occurred in the first two years after treatment and all domains of sexual function, including erectile dysfunction, then appeared to stabilize.”

 Copyright MedPageToday 2010