Rick Ward, of Deer Lodge, Montana and San Antonio,Texas, a pioneering prostate cancer awareness advocate and activist, died recently of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Rick, an Air Force veteran aged 71, will be remembered for his tremendous contribution to Seedpods brachytherapy mailing list, for his dedication to helping Veterans faced with cancer and other health problems, for popularizing the sky blue ribbon as an emblem of prostate cancer awareness, and for advocating for equitable funding for prostate cancer research.

Rick discovered he had prostate cancer at age 56 in September 1994 in Deer Lodge, Montana when a PSA test at a free screening clinic during Prostate Cancer Awareness Week came back at a high 14 ng/mL. He called the National Cancer Institute at 1-800-4CANCER; and as an early internet user, he joined one of the start-up online mailing lists.

Jenny Potter in The North Bay Nugget, Ontario, Canada, reports “Another obstacle is out of the way for men at risk of developing prostate cancer.” Unfortunately, this is not quite yet the case. As Potter says:

The Ontario government recently announced it will cover the cost of the prostate-specific antigen tests when performed at laboratories.

Currently, publicly funded tests are only available in hospitals, but picking up the tab for those performed in laboratories will make it more convenient for rural patients to be tested.

Trouble is, as Potter’s report goes on to explain:

Men must meet a list of criteria in order to avoid paying $30 for the test at a local laboratory.

Patients showing symptoms of prostate cancer, who have received a diagnosis or who are directly related to someone with the disease qualify to be tested for free.

Mission Healthy Men is a campaign in Austria to motivate men to become as health-conscious as women and to get health check-ups, especially for prostate cancer.

Under the slogan “Prevention is the future” the campaign is fundraising among banks, corporations, drug companies and orchestral concert-goers, while aiming to impact health choices by regular guys who get their autos serviced at regular intervals — or did before the recession — yet ignore their own health.

A single PSA measurement in middle age can predict diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer up to 25 years later in an unscreened population, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA).

Almost all advanced cancers could be found early by intense screening of at-risk patients, according to researchers from New York and Malmo, Sweden who analyzed samples taken from a population-based cohort of 21,277 men in Malmo, Sweden between 1974 and 1986 to determine whether initial PSA plasma levels correlated with future diagnosis of advanced disease.

Of the 21,277 cases, 498 men actually developed prostate cancer, and 161 suffered from advanced disease (greater than T3 or metastasis). Association between PSA levels and eventual development advanced disease was determined using conditional logistical regression. In men with a total PSA of .5, .75, 1., 1.5 and 2 ng/ml, the probability of being diagnosed with advanced disease by age 75 was 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent, 7 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Risk was highly concentrated, with 89 percent of advanced cancers occurring in men with the top 10 percent of PSA levels.

This finding was presented Moderated Poster Session 59 at AUA on Wednesday, May 23 , 2007.

To screen or not to screen for prostate cancer in men remains in question in Europe as two recent studies presented at the European Urology Association meeting last month reveal. In a session on screening, two urologists, Dr. Schroeder of Rotterdam and Dr. Pelzer of Innsbruck, presented data in support of contrasting positions.