The annual meeting of AORTIC (the African Organisation for Research & Training in Cancer) was held in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania earlier this month. Information about this web site — as well as the web sites for The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink and the parent organization (Prostate Cancer International) — was made available to all the 700+ attendees at the conference as part of our initiative to spread more information and awareness about prostate cancer. To see some photographs from the meeting, please click here.

An article online in The East African on Saturday could be misleading for African men.

This article states that, “The blood test used to screen for prostate cancer saves very few lives. And it leads to risky and unnecessary treatments for large numbers of men, two studies have found.” And this statement is true … in America and Europe, where the two studies were carried out, and where PSA testing has been widespread for 20 years.

However, the situation in Africa is very different. For starters, the risk for prostate cancer among black Africans appears to be higher than it is even for African Americans. Second, most Africans have not been being tested for prostate cancer for the past 20 years. It would be completely inappropriate to apply the results of these two studies to men on the African continent at this time.

In a few weeks time, Ishmael Norman, a 54-year-old Ghanaian prostate cancer survivor, will be starting a 1600-mile trip on foot and by bicycle from Half Assini near the border between Ghana and the Ivory Coast through Accra to Tamale in northern Ghana.

Ishmael works for the Ghanaian Institute for Security, Disaster & Emergency Studies (ISDES), and along the way his primary goal is to talk to the people of Ghana about emergency preparedness at a series of town hall-like meetings. However, since his own diagnosis and treatment for prostate cancer, Ishmael is also planning to use this walk to raise awareness about prostate cancer in Ghana, and we applaud him for his efforts.

If you want to follow Ishmael on his journey, you will be able to do so through the ISDES web site. Prostate Cancer Africa also plans to work with Ishmael to get information about how his prostate cancer awareness efforts go along the way.

You can support Ishmael on his walk by making a donation to ISDES or you can walk along with him for parts of his walk to raise awareness.

Odedina et al. have reviewed available data on the incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates of  prostate cancer among African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and men in West African nations historically associated with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. They note the very high incidence of prostate cancer among all these groups, which appears to reflect an ancestral genetic predisposition for prostate cancer. They also note that the morbidity and mortality of prostate cancer among African Americans has been falling since 1991; however, the rate of that fall is less that among Caucasian Americans.

According to the Vanguard online, the Lagos State Government this week kicked off the second phase of a free prostate cancer awareness and screening program. This initiative is based on the premise that as many as 14 million Nigerian men may be afflicted with prostate cancer, the most common cause of cancer death in Nigerian men aged 50 and above.

During a pilot phase of the study, a total of 408 men were screened, of whom 272 were normal, while 100 were requested to repeat the test after 6 months and 36 were referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital for review. Following the review, 16 men were asked to undergo prostate biopsy and 8 of them have had the biopsy carried out. Three of these 8 were determined to have cancer of the prostate. Thus, in the pilot phase, at least 3/408 men screened or 7 men in 1,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer.

We are pleased to be able to announce the completion of Phase II in the development of the Prostate Cancer Africa knowledge-base.

At a minimum, for every African nation, the site now contains:

• Core information on prostate cancer in English, French, and Spanish as relevant
• Printable PDF files about prostate cancer risk and diagnosis
• Printable PDF files addressing the basics about treatment
• A section on the epidemiology of prostate cancer

Major items still to be addressed include translations of content into Arabic, Portuguese, and Swahili for relevant nations.

In a recent article on the Tanzanian Daily News Online, Dr. Ali Mzige asks why men are so far behind their womenfolk in ensuring testing for prostate cancer as compared to breast cancer. Good question Dr. Mzige!

We are looking for some help in the development of this web service. If you might be interested, please click on “You Can Help” at the top of this page.

Olapade-Olaopa and colleagues reported earlier this year that, “In Africa, most patients with CaP present with advanced disease, and surgical castration is the most common treatment option, as most modern treatment strategies for the disease are unavailable or unaffordable.”

They note that, based on a detailed literature review and direct interviews with other physicians and other health care executives, in Africa, most patients with CaP present with advanced disease, and surgical castration is the most common treatment option, as most modern treatment strategies for the disease are unavailable or unaffordable. A significant proportion of these men progress to hormone-resistant disease shortly after first-line hormonal treatment, and a majority die within 2 years. Problems that are peculiar to the African continent include poor health facilities, scarcity of expert care, high cost of treatment, lack of data, low level of awareness of the disease, absence of early detection and treatment programs, cultural limitations, and the prominence of alternative medical practice.

An article in the September 10 issue of the Nairobi-published Business Daily has addressed “the increasing onslaught” of cancer in Africa, calling out increasing risk for prostate cancer as one specific factor.

The article goes on to note that, “Although many of the cancers found in Africa are preventable or treatable when detected early enough, the grim picture of insufficient resources and a lack of basic infrastructure mean that most Africans have no access to cancer screening, early diagnosis, treatment or palliative care.”

Current World Health Organization (WHO) projections suggest that more than 1 million new cancer diagnoses each year in Africa by 2020. A significant proportion of those cases can be expected to be prostate cancers, and most of the prostate cancer diagnoses can currently be expected to be made too late for curative treatment to be effective.