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Prostate cancer is a formidable enemy. From the
very beginning, it is “multifocal” —that is, it springs up in
many places inside the prostate. A man with localized prostate
cancer has an average of seven separate tumors growing all at
once. Worse, that growth is silent. Symptoms for prostate cancer
don’t appear until the disease has advanced beyond our ability
to cure it. And unless it is caught early, prostate cancer is
difficult to cure.
It is also way too common. This year, an estimated
180,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and
30,200 will die from it. We find those statistics unacceptable.
Every scientist and physician here at the Brady Urological Institute
is dedicated to eliminating the scourge of prostate cancer. We
have declared war against it.
How do you fight a war? We are waging our investigative
attack on prostate cancer from many fronts: Preventing cancer
from developing, improving early diagnosis, reducing side effects
of treatment, and discovering new ways to manage advanced disease.
Our full-scale assault hinges on strong collaboration among urologists,
basic scientists, medical and radiation oncologists from the Kimmel
Cancer Center, and pathologists—our version of the Army, Navy,
Air Force and Marines—and it has been unparalleled in its success.
Maybe the language of war sounds dramatic —until
you talk to a patient with fear in his eyes, newly diagnosed with
high-grade cancer, who holds his wife’s hand for strength and
comfort as they both think about the future. Or, as a doctor,
you close your own eyes at the memory of how it often used to
be, not so long ago—when you watched helplessly as one of your
patients slipped away despite your best efforts, in agonizing
pain because his disease was caught too late to be cured.
The great news at the Brady Urological Institute—it’s
in this issue, it’s in the halls, laboratories, clinics, operating
rooms and at the patient’s bedside—is that, in the language of
war, we are winning skirmishes and battles, pushing back the enemy’s
front lines, and changing the course of this disease.
But wars are expensive. In the past, we have relied
upon grants from the National Institutes of Health, our main source
of funding, and the revenue generated by professional fees. Our
urologists at the Brady Urological Institute work for a salary,
and for years, we have reinvested all of the extra money from
professional fees into our mission of research. However, this
fine luxury—this auxiliary “cushion” of research money from professional
fees—has disappeared. Over the last decade, reimbursements have
dwindled due to sharp cutbacks in Medicare reimbursements, and
the increasing pervasiveness of HMOs. Fortunately, when our patients
learned about this need, they responded with generous support
and helped us build an endowment to provide the research income
that has kept our mission going. Because of the philanthropy of
our patients, we have been able to make progress faster than we
ever could have using our resources alone. Thank you.
Urologist-in-chief Patrick C. Walsh, M.D., has
always believed that the best way to tackle the multifaceted problem
of prostate cancer is to hit it hard from every possible angle,
by achieving a critical mass of brilliant minds—scientists and
clinicians. It is through Dr. Walsh’s vision that income from
the Brady’s endowment has supported scientists throughout Johns
Hopkins who are working on prostate cancer.
Over the next several years, Dr. Walsh—after serving
30 years as chairman of the Brady Urological Institute—will relinquish
his administrative duties to devote more time to seeing patients,
operating, and teaching. In formal recognition of the winning
philosophy that he has pursued for so many years—and to make certain
that Dr. Walsh’s vision continues —Johns Hopkins is developing
the Patrick C. Walsh Prostate Cancer Research Fund. The change
in leadership will not diminish the vigor of our war on prostate
cancer. Indeed, we hope to raise $20 million for this fund by
the time Dr. Walsh steps down as chairman. We invite all of Dr.
Walsh’s patients to participate in this initiative to honor him,
and to further Hopkins’ tremendous effort to defeat prostate cancer.
This research fund will support the work of scientists
from all disciplines at Johns Hopkins who want to join our fight
against prostate cancer. Although the fund will be held in the
Brady Urological Institute, it will be overseen and administered
by a scientific advisory board, composed of Hopkins medical and
radiation oncologists, basic scientists, pathologists, and urologists.
Each year, the fund will send out requests for research applications
to scientists throughout Johns Hopkins. This fund will enable
us to continue attracting the best scientific minds from basic
sciences, and from other departments we have not yet tapped—scientists
who may see an opportunity to apply some of their most recent
findings to this field. In this way, we’ll make the cure that
we are all working so hard to attain happen even faster.
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