Return to Main Menu

Prostate screening reaches high risk population by Heather Murphy Public Relations MUSC’s annual prostate cancer screening, held in October, yielded more than 350 participants and brought record numbers of African American men in for preventive care. “In past years we’ve had about a third of our participants represent the African American population, but this year, 43 percent were African American,” said Keith Rodgers, Ph.D., of the Environmental Biosciences Program. “We were successful in reaching the population at the highest risk for prostate cancer,” said Nabil Bissada, M.D. professor of urology. “Most screening programs only recruit about 7 percent of the African American population. We’ve made a major contribution to the community by reaching out to this population and it is very indicative of the teamwork here at the Medical University.”  “It was very impressive to see the effort everyone made to make this event a success,” said Thomas Keane, chair of urology services. “Hopefully the screenings will be effective in achieving early diagnosis of prostate cancer, thus allowing us to intervene and prolong patients’ lives.”  Keane also mentioned that it was important that the screenings be used for the appropriate population, usually men between 40 and 70 years who have not had a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test or rectal exam in the previous year. Lin Nicolas, Ph.D., and administrator of the Hollings Cancer Center, was pleased with the outcome.  “With raised awareness of the value of preventive medicine, it’s extremely important that we work as a team with our local community in order to provide them the expertise of our physicians and staff,” she said. Not only was the increased turnout a victory for those involved with the screening, but the higher numbers are at the core of a study conducted in connection with the event.  “We conducted the screening as we always do, but this time we took extra measurements from informed participants in order to research the relationship among self reported nutritional factors and blood levels of PSA , IGF (insulin-like growth factor), and lycopene (found in tomatoes) in healthy African American and Caucasian males,” Rodgers said. David Hoel, Ph.D., a professor of biometry and epidemiology and principal investigator, and Katharine McGreevy, a Ph.D. student in biometry and epidemiology, wrote the grant for the study. “We had participants complete a detailed diet questionnaire to analyze and model associations among IGF, lycopene, PSA, and nutritional factors,” McGreevy said. “There is evidence that increased lycopene consumption is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer. We’re exploring whether the mechanism relating lycopene to reduced prostate cancer risk is mediated through IGFs and PSA.” With the support of two labs to process the participant’s blood samples, MUSC marketing services to schedule appointments and follow-ups, and a slew of biometry students to help with questionnaires and informed consent, the study moved quickly from paper to reality.  The next step for Hoel, McGreevy, and Rodgers is to analyze the IGF, PSA and lycopene levels of both African American and Caucasian participants and incorporate that relationship with the responses in the questionnaire.  “We administered the best diet questionnaire available, and we’ll use the results to spur more involved research designs to further investigate the relationship between diet and prostate cancer risk. This is just the start,” Rodgers said. Also involved in the study and/or screening were: Dr. Dennis Watson, Kelly Henderson, Sandra DeAntonio and the MUSC Health Connection, Laurel Willis and Joyce Foster, Roche Biomedical, Peggy Boehrig, Dr. Frank Groves, Brenda Nickerson, Lauren Kirby, Sterling Hannah, Peggy Anthony, Julie Deseo, Rhonda Yusuff, Kokil Bakshi, Catherine Kelly, Tricia Adrales, Lisa Graves, Joe Turner, Pam Ferguson, Joyce Fan, Lydia King, Ji Yong Song, Ann Chen, Theodosha Gilliard, Liu Jiang, Andrea Semler, Jill Abell, Jessica Riehle, Amanda Harmon, Laney Wilson, Nicole Price, Jessica Townsend, Leilani Lee, Tameika Fleming, Shelly-Ann Bowen, and Nancy Monestime.   Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.