For release - March 30, 1998

Vancouver - A $3-million grant from the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) to BC Cancer Agency researchers has blown the top off former funding levels for prostate cancer research in Canada. Until now, funding for prostate cancer research has amounted to between $600,000 and $800,000 a year for all of Canada.

The NCIC grant, one of only two program grants awarded nationally for 1998/1999, gives researchers nearly $1 million a year for three years for a 10-project attack on prostate cancer. The money will support projects, scientists' salaries, supplies and equipment.

"The Prostate Cancer Research Group in B.C. is the best in Canada," says Dr. Donald Coffey, president of the American Association for Cancer Research and the J. Smith Michael Distinguished Professor of Urology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore," and among the world leaders in developing innovative therapies."

The BC Cancer Agency prostate research group has made discoveries about prostate cancer and its treatment that have lengthened mens' lives, improved their quality of life and saved millions of health care dollars. Despite the achievements, researchers and cancer specialists were unsatisfied with the success rate of current treatments and created the new research Program on Prostate Cancer Progression.

"We still don't know enough about what causes prostate cancer and the stages of its progression," says Dr. Paul Rennie, a researcher at the BC Cancer Agency and the program coordinator. "If we understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for it, we can use the information to develop better therapies."

The Prostate Cancer Research Group is composed of scientists and clinicians at the BC Cancer Agency, University of British Columbia and Vancouver Hospital/Health Science Centre and is based at the BC Cancer Agency.

This multi-disciplinary team of researchers and clinicians, with international reputations in prostate cancer research and other disciplines, will investigate how specific genetic and cellular changes lead to the disease, how it progresses, and how these genes can be used as targets for therapy. In one project, researchers will study how environmental contaminants can block or increase activity of male hormones, which could affect the development and progression of prostate cancer.

Len Gross, 64, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1992. He has been chair of the Vancouver Prostate Support Group since 1994 and is also chair of the Canadian Cancer Society Prostate Health and Cancer Team. "I am delighted to hear this proposal has been approved and will be funded," Gross says. "This work will directly affect most of the men I have met during the last five years. It will result in saving many lives and it will bring new hope to those who are afflicted with the disease, and new hope to their families. Congratulations team!"

B.C.'s incidence rate for prostate cancer, at 30 per cent, is the highest in Canada. Even as this number continues to climb, the number of men who die from the disease is 16 per cent lower than the national average.

"Prostate cancer is often curable in its early stages," Rennie says. "But in many patients it has already spread outside the gland at the time of diagnosis. The cancer often progresses to a state that is resistant to hormonal treatments. That's why it is so important that we find out what's causing the cancer in the first place and why it is progressing."

The BC Cancer Agency and its partners conduct one of the largest prostate cancer research programs in Canada. They contribute to the treatment of all patients in British Columbia. Collaborations between scientists and doctors have led to rapid translation of research studies into clinical trials, new treatments for patients and early screening methods.