Prostate Cancer

In rejecting PSA screening for prostate cancer, an influential federal panel has chipped a cornerstone of preventive medicine, declaring that it's not always best to catch cancer as early as possible. "At best, PSA screening may help only 1 man in 1,000 avoid death from prostate cancer," the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday. "Most prostate cancers found by PSA screening are slow growing, not life threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime.

Joseph Rizzo formally withdrew yesterday from consideration for the Republican mayoral nomination, citing health reasons. Rizzo, 66, brother of the late Frank Rizzo and former city fire commissioner, said he would undergo surgery "right after Labor Day" to treat the prostate cancer discovered last week, just before he announced his intention to seek the party's support for his mayoral bid. "I simply wouldn't be able to campaign," Rizzo said....

An emotional Scott Palmer, the Phillies' director of public affairs, spoke eloquently of Gary Papa, his former colleague at WPVI-TV, who died yesterday following a five-year ordeal with prostate cancer. It was Palmer who guided Papa's wheelchair at Citizens Bank Park when the station's longtime sports director attended a funeral service for broadcaster Harry Kalas in April. "Even when you're prepared for something like this that you know is eventually going to come, it's just so hard to accept," Palmer said.

The partners at ProQuest Investments L.P. can sum up the mission of their venture capital fund in two words: cancer treatment. The $100 million Princeton fund focuses on investing in companies developing new treatments for cancer, especially prostate cancer, or those working on innovations that can help speed the development of those treatments. The American Cancer Society estimates that 563,100 people died from cancer last year, 37,000 of them from prostate cancer. About one in every four deaths in the United States is from cancer.

The acknowledgment by Philadelphia VA Medical Center officials of violations in a prostate-cancer program is a necessary step toward restoring the hospital's credibility. VA officials on Friday admitted violating federal radiation rules that are meant to protect patients from harm. An undersecretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs said the failure of hospital staff to report the substandard treatment showed "a lack of safety culture. " The violations included failing to properly train staff and not reporting mistakes as quickly or fully as required.

Man, 22, ID'd as mall shooter PORTLAND, Ore. - The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a rifle stolen from someone he knew, authorities said Wednesday. Jacob Tyler Roberts had armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at a Portland-area mall Tuesday, said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts. The sheriff said the rifle jammed during the attack, but the gunman managed to get it working again.

John Marshall, 91, of Devon, a retired communications director and a senior member and facilitator of a prostate-cancer support group, died of sepsis on Thursday, Dec. 15, at Paoli Memorial Hospital. His wife of 58 years had died two months ago, and although the official cause of Mr. Marshall's death was complications from an infection, he died of a broken heart, their son William said. Mr. Marshall graduated in 1938 from West Philadelphia High School. He was student body president, starred in several Shakespeare productions, and was voted "peppiest" member of his class, his son said.

NEW YORK - A huge international effort involving more than 100 institutions and genetic tests on 200,000 people has uncovered dozens of signposts in DNA that can help reveal further a person's risk for breast, ovarian, or prostate cancer, scientists reported Wednesday. It is the latest mega-collaboration to learn more about the intricate mechanisms that lead to cancer. And while the headway seems significant in many ways, the potential payoff for ordinary people is mostly this: Someday there may be genetic tests that help identify women with the most to gain from mammograms, and men who could benefit most from PSA tests and prostate biopsies.

Men under 65 with early prostate cancer had better survival odds if they had surgery right away instead of waiting for treatment only if their cancer got worse, a study in Sweden found. That was true even for tumors thought to be low-risk because they did not look very aggressive under a microscope. Doctors have long debated whether and how to treat such early cases, and the study shows "there clearly is a benefit to getting the cancer out in the younger population," said Richard Greenberg, urology chief at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

James M. Naughton, former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and later president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla., will be remembered at a public memorial service next month in Florida. Naughton was two days short of his 74th birthday when he died Saturday after a long battle with prostate cancer. His family announced Sunday that he will be buried this week in a private ceremony. The public memorial, to be held at the Poynter Institute, has not yet been scheduled.