Movember will be coming to an end shortly, and some of you “Mo Bros” may be reaching the dreaded face tickle stage of moustache growth. This may be a time when you need some extra motivation to keep growing that nose neighbor until the end of the month, and lucky for you that motivation has come in the form of a research breakthrough funded by Canadian fundraising efforts. It is immensely rewarding to be able to see what has come of the funds you raise when making a donation to a research cause.
Research led by Professor Robert Bristow of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, has discovered that men have a genetic “fingerprint” within their cancer cells that will basically tell them whether or not the cells have escaped the prostate gland. Current methods for identifying the risk of prostate cancer recurrence is done using pre-treatment biopsies and is widely considered to be inadequate. The discovery of this genetic fingerprint will aid in the development of improved tests which will better predict which patients are likely to relapse after their primary therapy.
This year close to one million men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and around 250 000 men around the world will lose their lives to the disease. Movember’s prostate cancer goal is for men living with the disease to have the treatment and care needed to be physically and mentally well. This personalized medicine approach will improve cure rates for patients with aggressive prostate cancer but also allow doctors to not over treat patients who do not have aggressive prostate cancer.
Doctor Anthony Lowe, CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Australia, noted that if physicians were able to reliably distinguish between indolent and aggressive disease then active surveillance could be offered for the indolent cases and radical treatment for aggressive cases. This would avoid side effects like incontinence and erectile dysfunction in men who may not need radical treatment for their cancer. Researchers noted that current prognostic tools for localized prostate cancer are imprecise, with 30 to 50% of patients seeing their cancer return after radiotherapy or surgery.
The hope is that the test will be validated, approved by health authorities, and ready for use in five years. The global impact of this test extends beyond the fact that a number of researchers worldwide contributed to the project; this test can be put into hospitals worldwide within 5 years so it can start being used in discussions on how to personalize individual treatments.
One of the factors contributing to the success of this research project was the teams were allowed to do the research as a collaboration rather than in competition. This is the kind of positive environment that can be achieved when research teams receive the necessary funding to complete their research and can focus on their work rather than competing against one another to receive funding.
The Movember Foundation challenges men to grow moustaches during the month of November to spark conversation and raise vital funds for its men’s health programs. To date, more than $500 million have been raised. The money has funded 832 projects in 21 countries. For more information on research programs funded by the Movember foundation, you can check out their website and click on the ‘Funded Programs’ tab. Programs are divided into prostate cancer, men’s health, mental health, and testicular cancer. Each of the projects have a report card which outline key details about the research including what the research seeks to achieve, measures of success, and the impact of the project.
To donate visit Movember.com
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