Mr. Ablin’s father died of prostate cancer after presenting late in the disease-could screening and a PSA have saved him? A special investigative report by Pepe the prostate.

Read the below very carefully. First of all Mr. Ablin’s site is sponsored by a  medical company and yet he protests profit that is the result of PSA testing. His father died of prostate cancer after presenting very late in the disease and died a year later. This ethically and appropriately raises the question, “Could his father been saved by having had a PSA and screening beginning at age 40?” I would think so, that his father would have benefited from the very process he disdains is quite ironic. By the way, in the text below there is mention that his father died in 1979 when there “a limited ability to diagnose prostate cancer.” In 1979 we were doing rectals and biopsies on palpable abnormalities. Other than the advent of an ultrasound to guide the needle, very little has changed in the diagnosis of prostate cancer other than heightened awareness, screenings, and the PSA. Then we learn that he is an advocate of cryosurgery and his site is sponsored by a company that makes the cryosurgery instrumentation. Very interesting, very interesting indeed.

The risk of prostate cancer increases faster with age than any other form of cancer. The increasing life span of our aging population places a greater number of men at risk for this disease. One such man was my father. With little or no warning, Robert Benjamin Ablin went into acute urinary retention and was diagnosed with metastatic cancer of the prostate. This was in 1978, in an era of limited ability to diagnose prostate cancer. He was diagnosed in a late stage of his disease; he died one year later, in August 1979.

Founded in his memory, the Foundation is directed toward development and improvement of methods of early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of prostate cancer.  

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In 1970, Dr. Richard J. Ablin and his research team discovered antigens of the human prostate, including prostate tissue-specific antigen, that later became known as PSA^1,2.  PSA is prostate-specific, not cancer-specific³.   Men need to be careful about placing too much emphasis on their PSA numbers as the test has significant limitations.  

Doctor Ablin was one of the pioneers and early proponents of the use of cryosurgery, and coined the term and concept of “cryoimmunotherapy”, for the treatment of prostate cancer⁴.

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CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF THE FOUNDATION   

Dr. Richard Ablin Comments on the American Cancer Society's Recent Update on Prostate Cancer Screening:

• "...Pleased to Learn American Cancer Society Finally Agrees With His Long Standing Position..."  (click for story)

 

Public Advocacy

 

• The PSA Test: What is it? What does it tell us?  
• What constitutes an adequate diagnosis?  
• Treatment options  
• After treatment, i.e., the cancer survivor  

Research  

Objectives:

  

• Differentiation of early prostate cancer that may be latent (indolent) from one that is aggressive and clinically important and should be treated.  
• Development of response criteria (biological markers), other than PSA, to evaluate the effectiveness of new therapeutic regimens and/or agents.  
• Refinement of the “immunostaging” of patients as a means to:   
  • Assess and correlate their immunologic and clinical status prior to and following therapy  
  • Assess their potential to respond to immunologic-based therapy   

   

  

Approaches via:

  

• Fellowships

• Personal Research

  

Click on the Logo for Eligibility/Prescreening info and to learn more about this Study

Thanks to Galil Medical, Inc for their support!