Research Profile: Memorial Sloan-Kettering, New York, N.Y.

Prostate cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, New York, N.Y.

ByABC News
March 3, 2009, 2:59 PM

March 16, 2009 -- At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, we're very interested in understanding prostate cancer better and developing new treatments for prostate cancer. Our research focuses on three main areas. The first is focal therapy for very small, early prostate cancers that can be obliterated by new technological approaches that do not involve radical surgery or radiation therapy with all their intended side effects.

Another major area of interest we have is better treatment for men with locally advanced prostate cancers, the kind of cancers that are difficult to control with any one treatment -- surgery or radiotherapy alone. We're learning that we can combine hormone therapy, immune therapy and sometimes surgery and radiation to achieve much better results in men with these locally advanced life-threatening tumors.

And finally, we're developing new treatments for advanced prostate cancer. Perhaps, one of the most powerful new drugs to stop the male hormone, a drug called an antiandrogen, is being developed in the laboratories here and will soon undergo testing. And new forms of immunotherapy that allow the immune system to expand and really attack the prostate cancer are being developed with new drugs that enhance the immune system.

There's considerable research going on and I'm very optimistic about the future for men with prostate cancer.