New Procedures, Funding Equal Promise
Bruce Binder, a 52-year-old computer specialist, said he would rather die than undergo the removal of his cancerous prostate gland--a surgery that would keep him alive while destroying his sex life.
A decade ago, the only alternative to treatments that caused impotence or incontinence was to wait and hope. Binder and others like him, however, demanded new treatments for a disease rarely discussed in the past and often overlooked.
“I couldn’t think about living my life without sex, and wearing a diaper,” said Binder, who was newly married when diagnosed five years ago. “I would have done nothing about the cancer and just taken a year off to die.”
He didn’t have to do that, as novel uses of existing therapies and millions spent on research are yielding promising new treatments.
Companies such as Boston Life Sciences Inc. and Cell Genesys Inc. are working on everything from a vaccine to gene therapy, while advances by others such as Theragenics Corp. and UroMed Corp. have made existing procedures more effective with fewer side effects.
“There are a lot of exciting things going on right now,” said Dr. Robert C. Flanigan, chairman of Loyola University Medical Center’s Department of Urology. Most of the research is in its infancy, however, and it will be years before the treatments are deemed effective, he said.
Binder eventually was treated with cryosurgery, which freezes and kills the tumor while leaving healthy tissue unharmed. He has remained disease-free with no after-effects for five years.
Candela Corp., Cryomedical Sciences Inc., and ENDOcare Inc. all make cryosurgery equipment.
The potential market for prostate cancer is huge. Drugs for chemical castration, which combat hormones that stimulate the cancer, alone generate more than $1 billion in annual sales, said Hambrecht & Quist analyst Alex Zisson.
These drugs, made by TAP Holdings Inc.--a joint venture between Japan’s Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. and Abbott Laboratories--Zeneca Group Plc, and Schering-Plough Corp., can reduce cancers and relieve pain for those with advanced cancer but don’t actually cure it. While the drugs can prolong a patient’s life by two to three years, they cause impotence.
A decade ago, Eli Lilly & Co. introduced a simple blood test, now sold by Beckman Instruments Inc., to detect the disease. It supplemented the painful and sometimes ineffective digital rectal exam--and sent the diagnosis rate soaring among younger men.
Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in the United States, with 300,000 new cases annually. It is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men, killing 41,400 annually.
