IADT3since2000

"News from the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting"

Hi to all,

Let me introduce myself. I am an eleventh year survivor of a challenging case of prostate cancer, using an investigational therapy known as triple androgen deprivation therapy (with bisphosphonate and nutritional/exercise/stress reduction support), doing very well.

Virtually all of my posts are on the Prostate Cancer board, but I thought participants on the Breast Cancer board might be interested in a report on the AACR meeting that I posted Wednesday evening. If you are interested, you can find it on the Prostate Cancer board under this title: "Your Representative at the American Assn. for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, 2010." You can spot it easily by the glowing lightbulb symbol in the margin. I just did a search of the HealthBoards system and found that no other participant in the AACR's Scientist↔Survivor Program (SSP) was posting about the event on the Breast Cancer board, so I decided to share my report more widely. I'm going to suggest that some of the breast cancer SSP participants post here, but until that happens, you will have my report.

I was not there as a medical professional. In fact, I have no enrolled medical education but was participating in a special program that brings about forty survivors to each year's five day annual conference. Most of us were survivors like me, without medical credentials.

While I was there specifically to represent prostate cancer survivors, much of the meeting, and much of my report, apply to cancer generally. The Scientist↔Survivor Program included survivors representing many kinds of cancers. The more common cancers were more heavily represented, as you might expect, but there were at least two of us who represented rare ("orphan") cancers.
The Komen Foundation is a major sponsor of the entire AACR conference, as well as a supporter of the SSP, so there is usually ample representation from the breast cancer community. This year there were nineteen SSP participants involved with breast cancer. Breast cancer organizations, and organizations represented by breast cancer survivors included: Susan G. Komen for the Cure; Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation; the Hungarian League Against Cancer; African American cancer Support Group, Inc.; Stand Up 2 Cancer; Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation; SHARE - Self Help for Women with Breast or Ovarian Cancer; Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center; Breast Cancer Resource Center (Austin, Texas); Sharsheret; and Native People's Circle of Hope. I was most impressed with my SSP colleagues who were representing breast cancer survivors.

As you might expect, many of the presentations at the conference dealt with breast cancer. The AACR is more toward the basic end of the research spectrum, so you see things there that have not yet been published in peer reviewed medical research journals.

If you read my report and post a response on the Prostate Cancer Board, I'll read it and respond if appropriate to that board (if it's general or not pertaining to another cancer), or I'll try to post a response on the appropriate board.

Take care,

Jim