SEATTLE HOSPITALS DO PIONEERING TREATMENT WORK

BY CAROL SMITH P-I Reporter

Tuesday, October 20, 1998

Section: Lifestyle, Page: E2

The Seattle area has a rich history of pioneering treatments for prostate cancer. The use of radioactive seed implants - brachytherapy - was first done in this country by Dr. Haakon Ragde and his colleagues at Northwest Hospital. Ragde has performed more than 2,000 of the procedures since 1985.

In one of the first long-term follow-up reports, Northwest found that 66 percent of patients with early-stage prostate cancer were disease-free 10 years after receiving seed implant treatment.

By comparison, the disease-free survival rates for patients who underwent prostate removal were between 47 and 73 percent. For patients who received external radiation treatment, the survival rates were between 13 and 38 percent.

The Pacific Northwest Cancer Foundation at Northwest Hospital is working on an experimental ``vaccine" for treating prostate cancer.

Seattle is one of the few places in the world where prostate vaccine research has advanced to the human testing stage. For more information the treatment, at Northwest Prostate Institute, call 1-888-694-7333.

Northwest is not the only local place working on new prostate cancer treatments. A year and a half ago, Dr. Peter Grimm and Dr. John Blasko, two doctors who helped pioneer brachytherapy, split from the Northwest Prostate Institute to form the Seattle Prostate Institute at Swedish Medical Center. The new center, which has about 25 doctors, is continuing to fine-tune brachytherapy and train physicians in the technique, Grimm said. For more information call 206-215-2480.

And at the Swedish Tumor Institute, doctors are using high-dose, temporary radioactive inserts to treat prostate tumors. (For more information, call 206-386-2323.)

At the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, researchers are trying to find the genes responsible for inherited prostate cancer. For its study, the center is especially interested in finding African American families with two or more living men who have had prostate cancer. (For information, call 800-777-3035.)

INSIDE SEATTLEPI.COM