Vol. 2, No. 10

October 2003

Jerry Bylander, Editor  jerryby@texoma.net

FEATURE ARTICLES

The Managing Director's Column
To our members and friends, this month's letter is from Director Henri Plunkett.  
We are beginning a new season and it will hopefully offer the most recent findings in the battle of 
prostate cancer. This season our group will try to home in on individual needs of information as compared 
to just lecturing on pc in general terms. If you are a new attendee, please notify the group 
leaders and we will do our best to help you with the info you need . Believe us, we know new men 
face decisions that are serious, complicated, and confusing, and we also know your decision needs
to be the right one for you. That is our greatest goal to help you get it right the first time. We hope to
have the best of  the local areas and even DFW areas, best and brightest physicians to address you 
 with your information needs, and hopefully it will lead to your choice of a physician and 
treatment for you. What about the scary things your think your facing such as serious side effects of the 
treatments? I  could not think of a better situation than to come to these seminars and talk to many others 
who have already been down the road, and get the truth from survivors and not just a  pamphlet from 
your physician. Last season was so productive we held a cryotherapy session and a session on incontinence 
and impotence that was up front and very personal. Many of the group shared in their individual 
outcomes.  Remember we are not doctors but pc survivors willing and wanting to help you for free, as we 
feel a need to stop needless suffering from prostate cancer.

I  recently met a former attendee of the prostate support group at a local grocery store. I asked 
him why I had not seen his presence at our latest meetings? He politely informed me that he thought
 that after a few meetings some of the material shared was repeated, and he thought he got the 
information he needed and now was through his pc ordeal. In a perfect world this would be great.  He 
came, we helped, he is cured, its over. However one in three men will have a later recurrence of pc 
for a myriad of reasons. What to do then? We can help with good information on your options. More 
than that, does you know the Partin Tables have been revised recently, and, out of the blue, chemotherapy, 
in the past not thought to be effective in the treatment of pc, is now being used when pc recurs.
New and good information is now available to help you determine whether your pc is localized, systemic,
or metastasized. We can better explain the most important prognostic indicators in pc, such as the 
PSA, clinical stage, and Gleason score, and which I hope that no man makes a decision on treatment 
until he understands this crucial information. Please attend the new fall meetings to keep it 
fun and informative, as we all have a lot at stake!      See Ya  There.....................Henri Plunkett
See you at our next meeting in October.

    Dr. Jerry Bylander, Managing Director, USToo! Texoma

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    Next Meeting


    "    I have prostate cancer.  Do I choose surgery or radiation or what?"      

    Date: Tuesday Evening, October 21, 2003
    Location:  Wilson N. Jones North Campus Senior Center, south entrance, 3305  Calais Drive, Sherman, Texas

    6:30 PM - Social & Coffee
    7:00 PM - Program

    Speaker:     Dr. Patrick  McGrael,  Urologist,  Denison,  TX

    Program: Dr. McGrael will discuss the pros and cons of your therapy options for your cancer treatment, and the potential for a cure.  He will alsobe prepared to discuss usual side effects and the  ways they can be mitigated.   At the end of the program, Dr. McGrael will be available to discuss your particular options.  Also we will be available to discuss prostate cancer treatments of interest to you based on members' experience who have had radiation, brachiotomy, seeds or radical prostatectomies.

    Speaker:  Dr. McGrael is a well known and respected local urologist and is well qualified to discuss your options for treatment.

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    Last Meeting
    Date & Time: Tuesday, September 16,  2003, 7:00 PM
    Place: Wilson N. Jones, North Campus
    Attendance: 9 attendees


    Old Business

    None.

    New Business

     None.

    Program:   "Recent trends in prostate cancer treatment"

    Dr. Jerry Bylander, Bylander Associates, Inc., Sherman and Mr. Henri Plunkett, Hair by Henri, Denison

    Program:  Dr. Bylander will summarize Dr. Deborah Kuban's talk at the MD Anderson Associates Conference.  Her title was: "What's new in radiation therapy at MD Anderson".  Her topics included dose, dose and more dose from IMRT, reduction of CT scan time, MRS, status of the proton accelerator and its advantages, use of androgen deprivation therapy in conjunction with radiation for treatment of T3 cancers and some promising gene therapy directions.  Mr. Plunkett will discuss some new PC findings from John's Hopkins.   At the end of the program, we will take a few minutes to discuss prostate cancer treatments of interest to you based on members' experience who have had radiation, brachiotomy, or radical prostatectomies.
    Speakers:  Dr. Bylander, is President of Bylander Associates, Inc which does consulting in medical microelectronics and is  founder of NBLabs - now sold - which provides microelectrodes for understanding brain function.  Mr. Plunkett is owner of Hair by Henri and is well known by local urologists and oncologists for his up-to-date familiarization with new types of prostate cancer treatment..

    The meeting adjourned about 9 PM.

    Henri Plunkett, Program Chair/by the Editor

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    Other Important Events
    The Surprise Challenge, The fourth annual Move it For Dad" , benefit for prostate cancer awareness, Sat, October 4, 2003, Sun City Grand Surprise, AZ, $15 registration. More info: www.sw-prostatecancer.com 

    Your organization's meetings listed here.  Contact the Editor at jerryby@texoma.net

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    Editor's Notes

    Random thoughts from your editor

    What's new in radiation therapy at MD Anderson
    News you can use

    What's new in radiation therapy 
    Also given as the September program after Dr. Barker was was unexpectedly called to a WNJ board meeting as a member.

    From a talk by Deborah Kuban, Professor and Chief of the Genitourinary Section 
in Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson at the Anderson Network's Patient and Caregivers
Conference, September 5, 2003.
    • Dose, dose and more dose.   Through the use of IMRT machines it is possible to increase the days of radiation from 38 to 42.
    • Tests are being run for 30 days with  longer irradiation vs 42 days.  One test patient at the meeting reported no adverse effects.
    • Reduction of CT scan time by use of 8 beams.  Needed to determine location of prostate between days since prostate moves.  Also better imaging of the cancer is being achieved by change to MRI.  After initial location the BAT is used for daily prostate location and reprogramming.
    • MRS (Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy) shows promise for analyzing the cancer spectrum and doing chemical analysis.  It is expected that this technique will allow the therapist to follow the reduction in the cancer.
    • A CT scanner is being added to the radiation therapy room.
    • A proton accelerator will be on line by 2006.  This machine allows more energy to be delivered to the prostate without as much in the intervening tissue.
    • Androgen deprivation therapy in combination with radiation for T3 cancer is increasing the survival rate over that for radiation alone.  After 3 years the survival for the combination drops from 80% to 40% whereas that for radiation alone is around 20%( if I copied her slide correctly. Ed).
    • Two gene therapy efforts were described.  The tissue microarray is an attempt combine the cancer cell DNA with a normal cell's DNA to reinject the new cells and fool the cancer (if I understood what she said - Ed.).  The second is antisense inhibition.  Example: The Bcl-2 protein can come from a bad gene and acts as brake to prostate cell growth.  I think the idea is to put the complement in a drug.  This procedure is in trials.  My notes aren't clear on this example (which procedure above), but P53 growth factor failure can be added to a retrovirus and use retrovirus gene transfer to repair the defective DNA.  
    It seems to me that great progress is being made in the treatment of prostate cancer.

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    News You Can Use

    You can find news you can use at the USToo International web site: http://www.ustoo.org/.  Check it out for the latest references.

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    Jerry Bylander - Newsletter Editor

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