Why You Should Get Screened for Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer screening means looking for cancer before it causes symptoms. This helps to find cancer at an early stage when it may be easier to treat.

Tests that are commonly used to screen for prostate cancer are—

• Digital rectal exam (DRE): A doctor or nurse will insert a gloved, lubricated finger into the rectum to feel the prostate. This allows the examiner to estimate the size of the prostate and feel for any lumps or other abnormalities.
• Prostate specific antigen test (PSA): The PSA test is a blood test that measures the level of PSA in the blood. PSA is a substance made by the prostate. The levels of PSA in the blood can be higher in men who have prostate cancer. The PSA level may also be elevated in other conditions that affect the prostate.

As a rule, the higher the PSA level in the blood, the more likely a prostate problem is present. But many factors, such as age and race, can affect PSA levels. Some prostate glands produce more PSA than others. PSA levels also can be affected by—

• Certain medical procedures.
• Certain medications.
• An enlarged prostate.
• A prostate infection.

Because many factors can affect PSA levels, your doctor is the best person to interpret your PSA test results.

Should I Get Screened for Prostate Cancer?

Not all medical experts agree that screening for prostate cancer will save lives. Currently, there is not enough evidence to decide if the potential benefits of prostate cancer screening outweigh the potential risks.

Potential benefits of prostate cancer screening include—

• Screening can detect cancers early.
• Treatment for prostate cancer may be more effective when it is found early.

Potential risks of prostate cancer screening include—

• False positive test results (indicating that you have prostate cancer when in fact you do not) that lead to further tests and can cause anxiety.
• Treatment of some prostate cancers that may have never affected a man's health even if left untreated.
• Treatment may lead to serious side effects such as impotence (inability to keep an erection) and incontinence (inability to control the flow of urine, resulting in leakage).

CDC and other federal agencies follow the prostate cancer screening guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which state that there is insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine screening for prostate cancer using PSA or DRE.

CDC Prostate Cancer information center.

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Eli Lilly's ALMTA Reaches Primary Endpoint In Phase III Study (PARAMOUNT) In Keeping Lung Cancer Alive.

Eli Lilly and company has reached a decisive endpoint in the Phase III ALIMTA study, PARAMOUNT. The study evaluated ALIMTA® (pemetrexed for injection) in the continuation maintenance setting to determine the progression free survival, or the time a patient alive without worsening of the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a specific type of lung cancer. 

"PARAMOUNT demonstrated that an ALIMTA continuation maintenance regimen—single-agent ALIMTA following ALIMTA plus cisplatin induction therapy—can improve progression-free survival in patients with the most common form of lung cancer," said Allen S. Melemed, M.D., M.B.A., ALIMTA medical product development leader at Lilly Oncology.   "This finding continues to validate the use of ALIMTA maintenance treatment for certain patients living with this devastating disease."   

Here is the Eli Lily Press Release;

Pivotal Phase III ALIMTA study met primary endpoint

INDIANAPOLIS, June 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced today that PARAMOUNT, its Phase III study evaluating ALIMTA® (pemetrexed for injection) in the continuation maintenance setting, met its primary endpoint of progression-free survival, or the time a patient is alive without their disease worsening, for patients with a specific type of lung cancer called advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

"Continuation maintenance" treatment is when one of the same medicines used in first-line treatment setting is continued as maintenance therapy in an effort to control the cancer.  

Results from the study will be presented on Sunday, June 5 at 11:30 a.m. CDT during the Lung Cancer Oral Abstract Session (Abstract #CRA7510) at the 47th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago, Ill.  Lilly will present overall survival results from PARAMOUNT at a medical meeting in the future.

PARAMOUNT is the second study to evaluate the use of ALIMTA as a maintenance therapy in patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC, and the first study to evaluate the use of continuation maintenance with ALIMTA(1) following first-line ALIMTA plus cisplatin therapy.

Results of this multicenter, double-blind trial demonstrated the median progression-free survival measured from randomization (after first-line treatment) was 3.9 months on the ALIMTA arm as compared to 2.6 months on the placebo arm with a hazard ratio of 0.64.  Said another way, the study showed that ALIMTA continuation maintenance arm resulted in a 36 percent improvement of survival without disease worsening over the placebo arm. The maintenance disease control rate, or the percentage of patients achieving either a response or stable disease first measured at 6 weeks post-randomization was 71.8 percent (2.8%/69.0%) on the ALIMTA arm and 59.6 percent (0.6%/59.0%) on the placebo arm.  

"PARAMOUNT demonstrated that an ALIMTA continuation maintenance regimen—single-agent ALIMTA following ALIMTA plus cisplatin induction therapy—can improve progression-free survival in patients with the most common form of lung cancer," said Allen S. Melemed, M.D., M.B.A., ALIMTA medical product development leader at Lilly Oncology.   "This finding continues to validate the use of ALIMTA maintenance treatment for certain patients living with this devastating disease."    

A total of 939 patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC were enrolled in the study and received ALIMTA (500 mg/m2 on day one of a 21-day cycle) in combination with cisplatin (75 mg/m2) induction therapy.  Patients whose disease had not progressed during the ALIMTA+cisplatin induction and had a performance status of 0-1 (n=439) were randomized to receive ALIMTA maintenance (500 mg/m2 on day one of a 21-day cycle) plus best supportive care (n=359) or placebo plus best supportive care (n=180) until disease progression.  All patients received vitamin B12, folic acid and dexamethasone.

Overall, the most serious (grade 3/4) drug-related adverse events (AEs) were higher for those treated with ALIMTA continuation maintenance versus placebo (9.2% vs. 0.6% laboratory and 8.9% vs. 4.4% non-laboratory). The most commonly reported drug-related AEs observed on the ALIMTA arm versus placebo were anemia (4.2% vs. 0.6%), fatigue (4.5% vs. 0.6%), and neutropenia (3.6% vs. 0%).  There was one potentially drug-related death on each arm. Discontinuations due to AEs were 5.3 percent with ALIMTA and 3.3 percent with placebo.

The study was conducted in patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC because past studies have shown that advanced NSCLC patients with a nonsquamous histology (those with adenocarcinoma, large cell carcinoma, or other subtypes) experienced improved efficacy over the relative comparator arm in the trial (an increase in progression-free survival, as well as overall survival), when treated with an ALIMTA regimen.(1,2) Patients with advanced NSCLC with squamous cell histology were not included in the PARAMOUNT study as ALIMTA has not shown to be effective in this patient population relative to the comparators in these previous trials.

About Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)

Globally, lung cancer is the most common form of cancer and the biggest killer, causing 1.3 million cancer deaths annually.(3)  About 85 — 90 percent of all lung cancers are NSCLC.(4)  The liver, bones and brain are potential targets if the cancerous cells enter the bloodstream.

NSCLC comprises a group of histologies or tumor types differentiated by cellular structure. Nonsquamous histology includes adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma, which account for more than half of all NSCLC diagnoses(5), as well histologies classified as "other."

Eli Lily