Nationally-recognized urologist Ian M. Thompson Jr., M.D., professor and chair of the department of urology and the Henry B. and Edna Smith Dielmann Memorial Chair at the Health Science Center, will occupy the Glenda and Gary Woods Distinguished Chair in Genitourinary Oncology at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC), said Karen Fields, M.D., president and CEO of CTRC. The $2 million endowment of the new prostate cancer research chair was announced at the CTRC by San Antonio business and civic leaders Gary and Glenda Woods, who donated the funds for the endowment.
The CTRC and Health Science Center are partners in the San Antonio Cancer Institute, one of only two National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers in Texas.
“Dr. Thompson is without question one of the nation's most outstanding researchers and physicians in the area of prostate cancer,” said Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., president of the Health Science Center. “We are fortunate to have him lead the Health Science Center's department of urology, and we are grateful to Gary and Glenda Woods for this generous endowment that will play such an important role in the fight against prostate cancer.”
The new research chair will focus on the causes, treatment and prevention of prostate cancer. According to the NCI, prostate cancer is the second-most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in men in the United States. Some 180,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year in the U.S., and 80 percent of men who reach age 80 will get the disease.
“While the medical community has made great strides in detecting and treating prostate cancer in recent years, it’s clear there is still much more work to be done,” Thompson said. “This endowment will be a great help in our quest to learn more about a serious disease that threatens men around the world. Our group of investigators, ranging from basic scientists to clinical specialists, has a focus on not just eliminating the disease but identifying the causes and preventing it.”
Thompson is well known in the field of prostate cancer research. In the past two years, in both the Journal of the American Medical Association and in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Thompson’s findings demonstrated that the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test is important for prostate cancer detection but that aggressive cancers can occur at even low levels of PSA. Dr. Thompson also led the National Cancer Institute’s Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial – the first study to demonstrate that prostate cancer can be prevented in some men. The results of this study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003.
Gary Woods is the immediate past-chair of the CTRC Board of Directors.
Thompson to give Great Teachers lecture at NIH Dr. Thompson will be the invited speaker Wednesday for the Great Teachers series at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Thompson will highlight 22 years of refinement in thought concerning prostate cancer risk and the marker that changed the course of many men’s lives, the PSA test.
“Previously, we recommended a prostate biopsy for a man with a PSA level of 4.0 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) or greater, telling him that he might have a 25 percent risk of prostate cancer,” Dr. Thompson said. “But we are now factoring in outcomes we have observed connected to family history of prostate cancer, grade of tumors at biopsy, tumors that are biologically inconsequential, and normal or abnormal digital rectal exam.”
Today, such evidence points to different PSA cut points. A 65-year-old man with a PSA of 2.5 ng/ml may have a risk of 25 percent, but if his family history is positive for prostate cancer or he is African American, his risk is higher.
“We have learned enough about PSA to know that alone it is not good enough, but it is useful when viewed with other variables such as family history,” Dr. Thompson said.
