ASPI expands Active Surveillance Awards

Also, mulls expansion to India

By Howard Wolinsky

Active Surveillance Patients International, founded in 2017 as the first international support and education group dedicated to Active Surveillance (AS), has announced an expanded awards program to recognize patients, doctors, and programs that have advanced the cause of AS - close monitoring of prostate cancer.

ASPI is soliciting your nominations from the AS community and beyond for the awards,

ASPI is continuing the Dr. Gerald Chodak Active Surveillance Pioneer Award for medical professionals who advanced the cause of AS. This is the second year ASPI will present this award.

Laurence Klotz, MD, the so-called “father of AS,” credited with naming the management technique, was the first recipient of the Chodak Award last year. 

Klotz is a urology professor at the University of Toronto and Chief, Division of Urology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center.

Chodak, a urology professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, provided the seminal thinking for the AS approach. He created the Us TOO support organization, which merged in 2021 with ZERO, and was ASPI’s first medical adviser.

Chodak died in 2019 from an aneurysm at age 72. (His obit: https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/apatientsjourney/82547)

Among his many avocations, including tango and golf, Chodak was a glassblower. 

Robin Chodak, Gerry’s widow, endorsed the awards program and donated a piece of her late husband’s art, a decorative glass bowl emphasizing blue, the designated color for prostate cancer.

(Dr. Klotz spoke about Dr. Chodak and the future of AS at the 2022 Awards virtual ceremony.)

Klotz received the bowl in honor of Chodak and the award.

(Note Dr. Klotz and the bowl that Dr. Chodak made.)

ASPI will present two new awards in 2023:

--The ASPI AS Advocacy Award. This award goes to a layperson who has made a significant contribution toward the advance of AS.

--ASPI AS Special Award. This award will go to a group of doctors or patients who have made a special contribution to AS.

Please send any nominations to The ASPI Awards Committee at mlichty@aspatients.org by Feb 15.

The awards committee includes: Robin Chodak, Dr. Chodak’s widow,  a grief coach and author; Mark Lichty, co-founder and chair of ASPI; Howard Wolinsky, ASPI co-founder and editor of TheActiveSurveillor.com newsletter; Paul Schellhammer, MD, an advanced prostate cancer survivor and past president of the American Urological Association; Ericka Johnson, PhD, a social scientist at Linköping University, Sweden, and author of “A Cultural Biography of the Prostate”; James Schraidt, a patient advocate, former chairman of Us TOO and now a board member for ZERO: The End of Prostate Cancer.

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(ASPI news release in Malayalam.)

ASPI spreads AS message to India, mulls expansion

By Howard Wolinsky

Mark Lichty, my friend and co-founder of Active Surveillance Patients International, is taking the AS message to India.

Will he be known as the prostate proselytizer and the AS missionary?

There is potentially a huge pool of men who could benefit from the non-aggressive approach to managing prostate cancer with active surveillance (AS).

But India may be a tough town for the AS pitch, according to urologists there. It could be as difficult as climbing the nearby Himalayas.

Lichty, a nearly 20-year veteran of AS, will be advocating for AS amongst doctors and patients, on the Indian subcontinent, starting Jan. 17 based in New Dehli. He also plans to explore India’s ancient medical system, Ayurveda.

(Mark Lichty)

(Hope he works in some time to see the ancient, holy sites. India is more likely to change you than the reverse.)

(Wolinskys have a moment on the Ganges during cremation ceremony.)

He said in a statement to the Indian press: “Our main focus is to help men feel comfortable with AS and to ensure that treatment is done, if necessary, thus saving men from serious long-term side effects. One can achieve a peaceful vigilance while on AS and we want to help men to get to that place.

“As prostate cancer is slow progressing compared to other types of cancer, it is possible for one to survive for a long time without any treatment. By holding off on treatment and monitoring the signs of progression with the aid of a doctor, a low-risk prostate cancer patient’s quality of life remains the same.  Also, the AS will help to avoid the life-long side effects.”

Indian doctors—like many of their American counterparts until recent years—are AS skeptics.

AS is feasible in major population centers with MRIs and know-how.

But Abhishek Pandey, MD, Department of Urology, AIIMS, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, India, said in the Indian Journal of Urology: “In our opinion, low literacy, preconceptions about the meaning of cancer and poor compliance with follow-up regimes are the primary barriers to AS in low-risk patients in India, leading to a lack of indigenous data in this regard. Long-term follow-up with robust data on oncologic outcomes should be sought before recommending deviations from the current guidelines.”

Shanky Singh, MD, of the Department of Uro-oncology, Max Institute of Cancer Care, New Delhi, IndiaDepartment of Uro-oncology, Max Institute of Cancer Care, New Delhi, who in 2020 published a study, “Low-risk prostate cancer in India: Is active surveillance a valid treatment option?”, noted: “Screening is likely to help diagnose [prostate cancer] earlier in our country and may increase the likelihood of a successful AS strategy. However, as in the West, this has to be weighed against the problems of overdiagnosis and overtreatment and is a separate matter of debate altogether.”

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“The last word in the name Active Surveillance Patients International is “international.

When we started ASPI in 2017, the four founders—three Yanks and one Icelander—aimed to promote AS around the world.

Our first meeting in Iceland fell apart when a financial sponsor dropped out. But thanks to Zoom video conferencing, ASPI finally held its conference on the future of AS in 2022 with speakers from the U.S., Holland, and UK.

I helped organize that meeting and others with speakers from Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Australia.

All told, ASPI has served patients from more than 20 countries.

Now, Mark Lichty, ASPI co-founder and chairman, (I call him “The Frank Sinatra of ASPI,”) who has been on AS for nearly 20 years, hopes to share the AS message with India.

Mark will be speaking to physicians, patients, and the media in India to reaffirm the relevance of AS.

Govinda Kumar Ramakrishna, a former AS patient, will be Mark's point person for India.

(Govinda Kumar Ramakrishna)

Govinda splits his year between Kochi, India and Toronto. He is an ASPI board member and a prostate cancer survivor who had been on AS.

Here’s what Lichty said on Jan. 15 in Hindi:

This is in the whole story in Hindi appearing in the United News of India, the country’s multi-lingual news agency. For the whole story in Hindi:

If you prefer English: https://bit.ly/3XupAyi

The headline is: US group to popularise ‘Active Surveillance’ on prostate cancer in India

Good luck, Mark and Govinda.

Two don't-miss free webinars featuring AS visionaries: Drs. Klotz and Scholz

ASPI presents the latest episode in the cliff-hanging AS 101 video series, featuring Dr. Laurence Klotz, “father of AS.” Active Surveillance Patients International (ASPI) will premier the AS 101 Episode 3 video on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, at 12 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. London. To register, click https://bit.ly/3k7xuPT

AnCan features Dr. Mark Scholz, author of the groundbreaking “Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers” at 8 p.m. Eastern/1 a.m. London Jan. 30.

Scholz’s program is entitled, "Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers: The return 13 years later. An evening with Dr. Mark Scholz." To register, click https://bit.ly/3Xf4nbm

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