Breaking news: Participate with World Experts in Webinar on the Future of Active Surveillance
Set for 11 a.m. Eastern/4 p.m. GMT on April 22
By Howard Wolinsky, TheActiveSurveillor.com
On April 22 at 11 a.m. Eastern/4 p.m. GMT, a major webinar on the future of active surveillance will be held. I hope you will join us.
Active Surveillance Patients International and the AnCan Virtual Support Group for Active Surveillance and other leading patient advocacy groups and doctors have organized the webinar, "Your Voice in the Future of Active Surveillance.
I am one of the organizers of the webinar, and TheActiveSurveillor.com is a co-sponsor. I wanted to give my readers a jump on signing up for what I expect will be a virtual standing-room-only event.
Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtfuuqrzwtHNPuqzkigx65YBk8vV-teUdy
In the nearly dozen years I have been on AS, things have changed dramatically:
—There’s been an ongoing debate about the risks and benefits of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) testing, which has saved lives of men with advanced disease but also unleashed an epidemic of overtesting and overdiagnosis in men with low-risk disease.
—Active surveillance is growing in popularity. When I was diagnosed with low-risk disease in 2010, maybe as few as 6% of men went on AS—so 94% of men were treated with radical surgery or radiation. Today, the majority of men (55%) go on AS. A major improvement, but still 45% are treated and at risk for side effects, such as impotence and incontinence. The U.S. still lags behind places like Sweden where 94% of candidates go on AS.
—mpMRIs became the first line of diagnosing prostate cancer followed by biopsies, not the other way around.
—The potential risks of transrectal (AKA transfecal) biopsies, such as sepsis, too often not mentioned to patients, have had a spotlight on them.
—Men increasingly, when they can, are voting with their feet—and their prostates—to undergo transperineal biopsies and micro-ultrasounds to avoid sepsis and other infections.
—Molecular/genetic/genomic testing has become the standard in the U.S. to help men determine how aggressive their cancers are and decide on a course of treatment. But why not Europe and Canada?
—Access to care issues for Black and Brown men and men living in rural areas and inner cities have been highlighted. Why not equal treatment for all?
This webinar is a spinoff from two projects held this winter to address the future of AS.
Movember, the Australia-based men’s health organization, and Prostate Cancer International/University of Maryland held programs engaging patients and doctors on future directions for AS.
Leaders in this work, Dr. Minhaj Siddiqui, Professor, Urology, the University of Maryland, and Dr. Caroline Moore, Professor, Urology, University College London Division of Surgery and Interventional Medicine, representing Movember, will present their research to date at the webinar.
Our world-class panelists so far include:
--Dr. Chris Bangma, professor of urology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, is a leader in the introduction of active surveillance in Europe. He is the coordinator of PRIAS and GAP3 studies.
--Dr. Ola Bratt, professor and consultant urological surgeon at the Prostate Cancer Centre, Sahlgrenska University Hospital Gothenburg, Sweden, and chairman of the National Prostate Cancer Guidelines Group in Sweden.
—Dr. Peter Albertsen, a pioneer in active surveillance. is professor and chief of urology at the University of Connecticut.
—Dr. Peter Carroll, professor, UCSF Department of Urology, founded the Urologic Oncology Service at UCSF and is a pioneer in active surveillance.
—Dr. Laurence Klotz, professor of surgery at the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Chair of Prostate Cancer Research. He coined the term “active surveillance.”
—Dr. Timothy Wilt is a health services researcher at the Minneapolis VA Center whose work led to the development of observation, watchful waiting, and screening of prostate cancer.
—Dr. Antonio Westphalen, faculty member, University of Washington Departments of Radiology, Urology, and Radiation Oncology, and chief of the Abdominal Imaging Section.
Patients, advocates, partners/spouses, and physicians will participate in this program.
In addition to ASPI and AnCan, program sponsors include EUROPA UOMO, Prostate Cancer Support Canada, the Prostate Forum of Orange County, the Walnut Foundation in Toronto, and TheActiveSurveillor.com newsletter.
Again, sign up here:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtfuuqrzwtHNPuqzkigx65YBk8vV-teUdy
Please take TheActiveSurveillor.com survey on transperineal v. transrectal biopsies. Go to https://bit.ly/35mD6OY
Some interesting trends are emerging, such as an indication that more men are going the way of the transperineal biopsy. Hope to see if they hold up with more data.