Why It’s Time to Raise Awareness in the Fight Against Prostate Cancer
February 23, 2015
By Dr. Faina Shtern, CEO, AdMeTech Foundation
Prostate cancer is curable when detected early, yet an American man dies from the disease every 18 minutes. Affecting one in seven men, this disease is even more common than breast cancer (which affects one in eight women), but public awareness and research funding to improve diagnosis and treatment are still lacking.
That’s where AdMeTech Foundation – which works with some of the greatest minds in medicine, including doctors at Brigham and Women’s (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospitals (MGH) and the Dana Farber Cancer Center (DFCC) – plays an important role. My co-founders and I established AdMeTech in 1997 to help expedite the development of better diagnostic tools to detect and treat aggressive prostate cancer earlier. Accurate diagnosis is the biggest challenge today in prostate cancer care, so one of our main efforts has been The Manogram® Project. This research, education, awareness and advocacy initiative was designed to be men’s answer to women’s regular mammograms.
As a Boston-based foundation, we’ve benefited tremendously from long-standing collaborations with Drs. Adam Kibel (BWH and DFCC), Clare Tempany (BWH), Philip Kantoff (DFCC) and many other extraordinary colleagues. Our joint research projects include pioneering work in prostate MRI, molecular imaging and image-guided, minimally-invasive treatment since 1998.
Working together, AdMeTech, Partners hospitals, and state legislators have created a Massachusetts model that is helping to advance a national and global agenda for prostate cancer research, awareness, education and advocacy. In 2013, we received funding from the Department of Public Health to conduct a clinical trial in MRI jointly with BWH. Last September, the U.S. Congress took great strides with the National Prostate Cancer Council Act, which is expected to enable the development of a research strategy to help advance diagnostic tools. We also developed global guidelines for prostate MRI (PI-RADS) to improve early detection of life-threatening disease, and we’re currently planning a global conference on prostate cancer diagnosis for 2016.
Prostate cancer is not only the most common major malignancy in the U.S., it is also the second most lethal cancer in men. By bringing together some of oncology’s key leaders in care and research, we are determined to change that.
Join AdMeTech at the Massachusetts State House for Prostate Cancer Awareness Day on April 16, 2015 to learn about the latest screening, diagnosis and treatment advances.
