Prostate cancer patients sought for database study

Men with prostate cancer and their spouses/significant others are being sought for a joint study being conducted by two Los Angeles-area medical centers as part of a collaborative effort to better understand the genetics of the disease. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute is seeking participants for its Prostate Patient Profiles Project, in conjunction with Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center, Memorial Campus in Inglewood.

The goal of the project is to collect blood and tissue samples and medical information from men with prostate cancer and their spouses/significant others to help physicians better understand the biology of prostate cancer and to study the factors that influence how different types of prostate cancers respond to treatment.

“This data collection project is being undertaken because very little is known about what causes some individuals to develop cancer, while others don’t,” explained David B. Agus, MD, of the Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center and co-principal investigator on the project with Ronald Shazer, MD. “Once we better understand the genetic and proteomic patterns of men with prostate cancer, we hope to be able to develop more targeted, more individualized-and, ultimately, more effective-treatments for prostate and other cancers.”