Conference 2010 features Dr. Buckman, Dr. Fleshner, Dr. Tractenberg, and more…

Three Toronto doctors will bring a world of information on prostate cancer to the 2010 Annual Prostate Cancer Canada Network National Conference, which will be held between September 22 and 25 at the Royal York Hotel, Toronto, Ontario.

(For more information on the conference, click here.)

Dr. Robert Buckman, a medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital and a professor at both the University of Toronto and the University of Texas, kicks off the offerings from these three physicians with his talk “Laughter: The Second Best Medicine.”

Considered one of the wittiest speakers on the medical lecture circuit, Dr. Buckman has devoted much of his time over the last twenty years to improving communication between scientific or medical experts, on the one hand, and the rest of us---prostate cancer patients and their families included. His funny and down-to-earth approach to humour, which he sees as a normal and useful coping mechanism, is sure to please. For him, humour is something that “almost all humans can use in order to deal with adversity” rather than a “magical” entity that can “melt cancer cells.”

Next on the agenda is Dr. Neil Fleshner, who heads the Division of Urology at the University Health Network (incorporating the Princess Margaret Hospital). Dr. Fleshner is also a professor at the University of Toronto. In 2008, he was awarded the inaugural Love Chair in Prostate Cancer Prevention, and his scheduled talk at the PCCN conference---“Nutrition and Diet”--- reflects his long-standing interest in micronutrient intervention as it relates to prostate cancer prevention and the delay of this disease’s progression.

Dr. Fleshner (with Dr. Trachtenberg and others at The Prostate Centre of the Princess Margaret Hospital) have produced a wonderful guide to reducing prostate cancer risk and making the best of prostate cancer treatment through diet and exercise. This guide, Challenging Prostate Cancer: Nutrition, Exercise, and You, can be downloaded from The Prostate Centre website.

“Recent Research and Medical Advances” is the title of Dr. John Trachtenberg’s presentation. And he is sure to provide an excellent overview of this important topic. Dr. Trachtenberg is both the Director of The Prostate Centre at the Princess Margaret Hospital and the Director of Prostate Services at the Murray Koffler Urologic Wellness Centre of the Mount Sinai Hospital. He is also a professor at the University of Toronto, where he holds the prestigious Fleck Tanenbaum Chair in Prostatic Diseases.

Dr Trachtenberg’s summary of recent research and medical advances in the fight against prostate cancer will no doubt mention his own current work in the area of focal therapy for low-risk prostate cancer patients. (Focal therapy for prostate cancer aims to identify, target, and destroy the cancerous cells in the prostate, leaving much of the gland untreated.) The hope is that through improvements in imaging---such as multispectral magnetic resonance imaging (multispectral MRI), which uses multiple MRI-derived data sets to locate cancer cells---doctors will one day be able to offer men with low-risk, localized prostate cancer an option between whole organ treatments, such as a prostatectomy or radiation therapy, and active surveillance.

All three doctors, as you can see by the breadth and depth of their research interests and the length of their service to medicine, are committed to finding new ways to prevent and treat prostate cancer. And they are resolved to communicate these advances effectively so that men facing the prostate cancer diagnosis can take advantage of the most recent research to live longer, healthier, and happier lives. 

For more information on these and other conference speakers, consult our website.