New prostate-cancer advances

Study shows moderate red-wine consumption may cut likelihood of protate cancer in half; researchers caution that heavy alcohol use increases health risks

Dr. Janet Stanford.

Drinking a glass of red wine a day may cut a man’s risk of prostate cancer in half, and the protective effect appears to be strongest against the most aggressive forms of the disease, according to a new Fred Hutchin-son study.

“We found that men who consumed four or more glasses of red wine per week reduced their risk of prostate cancer by 50 percent,” said Dr. Janet L. Stanford, whose lab led the study. “Among men who consumed four or more 4-ounce glasses of red wine per week, we saw about a 60 percent lower incidence of the more aggressive types of prostate cancer. The more clinically aggressive prostate cancer is where the strongest reduction in risk was observed.”

Stanford and colleagues found no significant effects — positive nor negative — associated with the consumption of beer or hard liquor and no consistent risk reduction with white wine, which suggests that there must be a beneficial compound in red wine that other types of alcohol lack. That compound may be an antioxidant called resveratrol, which is abundant in the skin of red grapes but much less so in the skin of white grapes, Stanford said.

While the researchers found that the risk of prostate cancer decreased 6 percent for every glass of red wine consumed per week, Stanford is quick to point out that research shows the law of diminishing returns comes into play when consumption increases beyond moderation.

“From a public-health standpoint, it’s difficult to recommend any alcohol consumption given the risks associated with heavy consumption, from increased overall cancer risk to accidental injury and social problems. But for men who already are consuming alcohol, I think the results of this study suggest that modest consumption of red wine — four to eight 4-ounce drinks per week — is the level at which you might receive benefit. Clearly other studies show that more than that may have adverse effects on health.”

Improving the PSA cancer-detection test

Measurement of a man’s prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, level is the most commonly used test for early detection of prostate cancer. Yet researchers question the test’s adequacy as a cancer-screening tool since studies show that it may detect tumors that would never require treatment while, at the same time, fails to find some aggressive cancers.

A new study led by Dr. Ruth Etzioni now provides conclusive evidence that a variation of the test that relies on two types of PSA measurements could improve the test’s accuracy for men with borderline-normal total PSA levels. Although the benefit of this approach was modest, the researchers concluded that its use could translate into a significant reduction in medical costs and complications for this group of men by eliminating unnecessary biopsies to confirm the PSA test results.

Inhibiting the spread of prostate cancer

Dr. Valeri Vasioukhin has uncovered a protein that drives the spread of prostate cancer, a discovery that may spawn treatments to prevent cancer progression and extend patients’ survival. Scientists believe drugs to inhibit the protein could be developed to block or slow the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.

Researchers found that a protein called hepsin, which has been found in high levels in prostate tumors, caused cells in prostate tumors to lose their grip from the surrounding tissue and to spread from the prostate to bone, lung and liver.

“Because hepsin is a type of enzyme called a protease — and proteases are relatively easy to inhibit — we think it will be possible to develop an inhibitor of hepsin that prevents metastasis, and would be unlikely to have significant side effects,” Vasioukhin said.