PCRI to host educational event on prostate cancer therapy

Dean Ornish MD, recognized for establishing the impact of diet on prostate cancer (and heart disease), along with over a dozen internationally recognized prostate cancer experts will meet with over 800 prostate cancer survivors and their significant others at the Los Angeles Marriott near LAX on September 11th and 12th to discuss the latest thinking on prostate cancer treatment.  Topics to be covered are lifestyle and diet, immune therapy, active surveillance, hormone therapy, radiation, chemotherapy, supportive care and the latest and most promising research.

Prostate cancer therapy presents unusually difficult challenges because the most common treatment-surgery-destroys a man's ability to function sexually 2/3 of the time.  The overuse of surgery in the United States is likely due to that almost total absence of medical oncology input when men are diagnosed. (Unlike other common cancers such as breast, colon or lung cancer, that are universally supervised by medical oncologists-trained cancer specialists-prostate cancer is the only remaining cancer treated the same way cancer was managed 30 years ago, by surgeons.)

Frustration with the present status quo of prostate cancer therapeutic management has fostered the development of a number of advocacy organizations and support groups that are joining with the Prostate Cancer Research Institute (PCRI) to host this educational event. The month of September was selected because September is internationally recognized as prostate cancer awareness month.