VA starts clinical trial of prostate cancer drug Firmagon for COVID-19

VA launches clinical trial for Veterans with COVID-19 based on prostate cancer drug

Department of Veterans Affairs

WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) began a new clinical trial to test a Food and Drug Administration-approved prostate cancer drug as a potential treatment for male Veterans with COVID-19.

In a double-blind randomized controlled trial, VA scientists will compare the drug degarelix (trade name Firmagon) to a placebo for improving the clinical outcomes of nearly 200 Veterans who have been hospitalized with COVID-19.

“Veterans who have contracted this virus are in need of immediate care,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “This trial is an important step in advancing knowledge of a potential treatment for those infected with COVID-19. We are here to do everything in our power to preserve and protect life.”

Degarelix is often used to treat advanced cases of prostate cancer. It works by rapidly, but temporarily, suppressing the body’s production of male hormones. These hormones can fuel the growth of prostate cancer. Scientists are testing degarelix because lab evidence suggests male hormones trigger the production of a protein called TMPRSS2 on lung tissue. The virus that causes COVID-19 relies on TMPRSS2 to enter lung tissues.

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Columbia University applied advanced artificial intelligence and computational genomics techniques and used that lab evidence for this COVID-19 data. The researchers collaborated with VA to plan the new trial.

Potential side effects of degarelix are typically linked to long-term treatment. In the trial, patients will be administered only one dose of the drug that will last 28 days. Any side effects of degarelix are thus expected to be temporary.

By temporarily lowering male hormone levels, researchers believe they can reduce the production of TMPRSS2 in lung tissue and thus prevent the virus from penetrating lung cells. Hormone levels will return to normal at the end of treatment.
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Agent Orange tied to aggressive prostate cancer risk

Vietnam War chemical tied to aggressive prostate cancer risk
Published May 13, 2013
Reuters

Men who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals used during the Vietnam War are at higher risk for life-threatening prostate cancer than unexposed veterans, researchers have found.

What's more, those who served where the herbicide was used were diagnosed with cancer about five years earlier than other men, on average, in the new study.

"This is a very, very strong predictor of lethal cancer," said urologist Dr. Mark Garzotto, who worked on the study at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Oregon.

"If you're a person who's otherwise healthy and you've been exposed to Agent Orange, that has important implications for whether you should be screened or not screened," he told Reuters Health.
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Veterans: Westover planes fouled with Agent Orange

Veterans: Westover planes fouled with Agent Orange
Published: Sunday, April 01, 2012
By Jeanette DeForge, The Republican

The Republican | John Suchocki CHICOPEE – Vietnam veteran Robert P. Patenaude with the Agent Orange spray plane he and others crewed during the war. The C 123 transport named "Patches" because of all the bullet holes it received is now in a container that can only be accessed with hazmat suits, according to Patenaude, who receives disability payments because of Agent Orange.

CHICOPEE — For nine years they flew in them, they fixed them and they treated patients in them. Now, three decades later, veterans of the 439th Tactical Airlift Wing at Westover Air Reserve Base believe those airplanes are responsible for making them sick. Unknown to the veterans, the C-123 Providers, which had previously flown in Vietnam, were contaminated with Agent Orange. “We have crew members who are sick. We have crew members who have died ... We have people who aren’t even sick yet,” said retired Air Force Major Wesley T. Carter, who served as an air medical technician and flight instructor and examiner with Westover’s 74th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron for 20 years and flew in the C-123s from 1974 to 1980. While recovering from a heart attack last April, Carter was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Then he started hearing fellow crew members were also suffering from cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

Through word-of-mouth the group has compiled a list of 48 people who have diseases possibly linked to Agent Orange. red more here

Marine general opens up about battle with prostate cancer

Marine general opens up about battle with prostate cancer
By Dan LaMothe
Marine Corps Times

 MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. – In the midst of planning a complicated drawdown in forces, the Marine Corps' three-star manpower chief received startling news: He had cancer. Not just any cancer, either.

Lt. Gen. Robert Milstead, deputy commandant of manpower and reserve affairs, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that could spread and kill him if it weren't treated quickly. He received the news in January after a battery of tests that began in November with his annual physical, he said. The score on his prostate-specific antigen blood test, or PSA, had increased in the previous year, raising the prospect that something was wrong.

 "Once they told me, 'You've got cancer,' I said, 'Whoa,' " Milstead said. "The C-word can be intimidating. The range of options goes from denial to acceptance, and I think I was able to jump pretty quickly up to, 'OK, I've got cancer. How am I going to deal with this?' " Milstead, 60, is far from alone.

One in six men will get prostate cancer, and one in 33 will die from it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 Recovery frequently depends on a key factor that worked in Milstead's favor: early detection. read more here

Great Dane escapes death to help heal Vietnam Vet

Great Dane escapes death, rescuer, runs to an open heart
By SUE NOWICKI
The Modesto Bee
MODESTO -- Henry was on death row, days from getting the needle, when he was saved and taken to a safe house. But three days later, he jumped the 6-foot-high fence in the back yard and went on the lam.

That's when Ron Dorville of Modesto happened along and took the Great Dane home with him. The sight of his 4-foot-10-inch wife, Sue, walking the big dog made a neighbor grin and call The Modesto Bee. The call brought the caper to light.

The Dorvilles took Henry -- Ron named him after King Henry VIII of England because the dog "has a regal air" -- to a veterinarian.

Henry has been good medicine for Ron, a retired Army colonel who served in Vietnam, has post-traumatic stress disorder and is recovering from prostate cancer surgery earlier this summer.

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http://www.mercedsunstar.com/163/story/1066055.html

Breast and Prostate Cancers higher in military

Some cancer rates higher in military

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jul 22, 2009 14:14:01 EDT

A new study shows that while active-duty service members have lower rates of cancer overall than civilians, they have higher rates of breast cancer and double the rates of prostate cancer.

And though that could be attributed in part to early screening efforts, the authors suggested prostate cancer rates have gone up as a result of troop exposure to depleted uranium, while breast cancer rates may have risen because military women are more inclined to use birth control pills and be exposed to industrial chemicals at levels most civilian women avoid.

In the June edition of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, lead writer Kangmin Zhu, of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and colleagues stated that they wanted to find out if regular exercise and good health care, combined with a population that had been screened for major health issues, would yield lower rates of cancer.
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Some cancer rates higher in military

Philadelphia Veterans Administration Doctor Botched Cancer Treatments

Report: VA errors caused radiation burns

PHILADELPHIA, June 21 (UPI) -- A doctor at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration hospital was off target on most of more than 100 patients he treated for prostate cancer, records showed.

Dr. Gary Kao has left the hospital after botching 92 of the 112 procedures involving the implantation of radioactive metal "seeds" in the prostate glands of patients, The New York Times reported Sunday.
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VA errors caused radiation burns

Agent Orange and Prostate Cancer Concerns

Agent Orange Exposure Increases Veterans' Risk Of Aggressive Recurrence Of Prostate Cancer
ScienceDaily
(Apr. 20, 2009) —

Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are at increased risk of aggressive recurrence of prostate cancer, researchers report.

A study of 1,495 veterans who underwent radical prostatectomy to remove their cancerous prostates showed that the 206 exposed to Agent Orange had nearly a 50 percent increased risk of their cancer recurring despite the fact that their cancer seemed relatively nonaggressive at the time of surgery. And, their cancer came back with a vengeance: the time it took the prostate specific antigen, or PSA, level to double – an indicator of aggressiveness – was eight months versus more than 18 months in non-exposed veterans.

"There is something about the biology of these cancers that are associated with prior Agent Orange exposure that is causing them to be more aggressive. We need to get the word out," says Dr. Martha Terris, chief of urology at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta and professor of urology at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.
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Agent Orange Exposure Increases Veterans' Risk Of Aggressive Recurrence Of Prostate Cancer

Feds inspecting VA center in Pa. after under-doses

Feds inspecting VA center in Pa. after under-doses
By JOANN LOVIGLIO Associated Press Writer


PHILADELPHIA—Nuclear regulators have begun an investigation to determine why 55 prostate cancer patients received radiation treatments at lower than prescribed doses at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday that a special inspection is under way at the facility in part because of the number of patients given incorrect radiation doses.

"We are concerned with the number of medical events that occurred," said James Caldwell, the agency's regional administrator. "The special inspection is tasked with helping us understand their causes."

The men underwent brachytherapy, which involves implanting radioactive iodine pellets (often called "seeds") in the prostate to kill cancer cells. Men who undergo only that type of treatment typically have low-risk prostate cancer.

The VA reported in May that one patient's CT scans revealed that he got a dosage that was less than 80 percent of what was prescribed, according to NRC reports.

VA officials then reviewed medical records and conducted tests on 112 veterans implanted with the seeds since the program started in Feb. 2002 and found 55 received too-low doses.
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http://www.ldnews.com/news/ci_10419553

Study links prostate cancer, Agent Orange

Study links prostate cancer, Agent Orange

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Aug 5, 2008 14:25:59 EDT

Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange are nearly twice as likely to have prostate cancer — especially in its most aggressive form — when compared to veterans who were not hit with the herbicide, according to new research from the University of California, Davis, Cancer Center.

The new findings stem from a study of 13,000 Vietnam veterans enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Northern California Health Care System. The exposed veterans also were an average of 2½ years younger than men typically diagnosed with the disease, and were almost four times more likely to have cancer that had spread to other parts of their bodies.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_prostatecancer_agentorange_080508w/