UW Sets Up Program To Study Prostate Cancer Cells

Men with terminal prostate cancer can now help find a cure by donating their cancer cells after death.

The University of Washington Medical Center announced Monday it has set up a Prostate Cancer Donor Program in which metastasized cancer cells - those that have spread from the prostate to other parts of the body - are surgically removed within two hours of death.

The new effort, described as the first such formal program in the country, is similar to that for retrieving donated organs from trauma victims.

The program will boost chances of successfully growing prostate cancer cells in the laboratory, said Dr. Paul Lange, professor and chairman of the UW School of Medicine’s Department of Urology.

“With more cell lines for prostate cancer, we will be able to perform a number of research procedures, not the least of which will be to look for the genes that produce this disease,” Lange said.

UW doctors last week removed metastasized prostate cancer cells from two men, ages 77 and 51, who died of the disease. Both agreed to donate the cells after death.

More than a third of all cancers among American men are cancers of the prostate. The American Cancer Society projects more than 40,000 American men will die of the disease this year.

Lange said donors need not have been treated at UW Medical Center.

Cancer cells grow and spread rapidly in the body, but cannot be easily grown outside of it. Cells from within a tumor are particularly difficult to culture. Metastasized cancer cells can usually be cultured more readily, but it’s impractical to get such cells from a living patient.

It’s also very difficult to culture cancer cells from a prostate gland that’s been removed, and doctors usually don’t do surgery if the cancer has spread, said Dr. William Ellis, UW assistant professor of urology who is coordinating the new donor program.

The UW has been named a recipient of a large Milken Foundation grant to study prostate cancer. The foundation was established by former Wall Street junk-bond king Michael Milken, who has the disease.

People seeking more information on the donor program can call the UW Medical Center Prostate Center at (206) 548-8705.