Pitt Urology Professor Joel Nelson to Present Novel Approach to Treating Advanced Prostate Cancer

PITTSBURGH, Apr. 28, 2005 – University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urology, Joel B. Nelson, MD, will present phase III data about the role of selective endothelin-A receptor antagonists in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 28, 2005 at the Skeletal Complications of Malignancy IV symposium at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD.

Credited for first discovering the role of endothelin in prostate cancer progression, Dr. Nelson will present "ETA Antagonists in Prostate Cancer and the Relationship to Bone Metastasis" at the symposium, the only medical meeting to focus specifically on the skeletal complications of malignancy.

"We first began to investigate the role of endothelins in prostate cancer in 1995," explained Dr. Nelson, also leader of the Prostate and Urologic Cancer Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute."Now, ten years later, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase III trials indicate compounds that block the activity of endothelin, known as selective endothelin-A receptor antagonists may delay disease progression and time to bone pain in men with advanced prostate cancer, particularly in those patients whose cancer has spread to the bone."

Endothelin is a naturally occurring protein thought to be involved in the stimulation of cancer cells.Originally, compounds that inhibited the activity of endothelin were slated to fight high blood pressure and congestive heart failure because of endothelins role in blood vessel constriction. Dr. Nelson's research, however, helped demonstrate that prostate cancer cells secrete endothelin and lead to the investigation of endothelin's role in the metastasis of prostate cancer in bones and elsewhere.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for men in the United States, following only lung cancer.In 2005, more than 30,000 American men are estimated to die from the disease.Approximately 85 percent of advanced prostate cancer patients develop bone metastases, a very painful stage of the disease with few treatment options.Selective endothelin-A receptor antagonists may provide an important new treatment option and important quality of life benefits for these patients.

Sponsored by the Paget Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, and the University of Virginia School of Medicine, the Skeletal Complications of Malignancy IV symposium will take place April 28-30, 2005 at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD.The symposium will bring together international leaders in oncology and bone fields for plenary sessions, abstract presentations, and poster displays on the bone complications of cancer metastases and provide clinicians and basic researchers with cutting edge presentations on the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of bone metastasis from breast cancer, prostate cancer, and myeloma.Presentation topics will include the role of interaction between tumors and the bone microenvironment in the metastatic process, use of new imaging techniques, pathogenesis and treatment of bone pain from metastasis, management of treatment induced bone loss, and the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of osteosarcomas.