Medical Experts Call for Obama Administration, Congress to Boost Funding for Prostate Cancer Imagin...( New Tools Would Transform Diagnostics...),Health

New Tools Would Transform Diagnostics, Treatment; Save Lives, Health Dollars

BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A group of more than 40 leaders of academia, industry, philanthropy and advocacy called today for the Obama Administration, Congress, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense to increase federal funding for research into imaging technologies for less invasive and more accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Meeting this week in Bethesda, Md, at a conference convened by the AdMeTech Foundation, the medical experts discussed strategies for speeding development of imaging technologies for prostate cancer modeled after life-saving mammograms for women. Advanced prostate imaging -- or a "man-o-gram" -- would save lives and an estimated $5 billion per year in health care costs.

"As physicians, scientists, educators and patients, we are personally concerned about the human and societal costs of prostate cancer. We firmly believe that more accurate imaging technology would lead to better patient care, including guidance for diagnosis, biopsy and minimally invasive therapy," today's consensus statement reads. "The AdMeTech Foundation conference clearly demonstrated that real and important improvements in prostate cancer care are at hand if we are resolved to increase the national investment in prostate diagnostics."

Conference participants also signed a letter to Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the National Institutes of Health, urging increased federal research funding for prostate cancer imaging diagnostics.

Today's calls for funding action adds professional weight to similar support in legislation considered in the 110th Congress (House Resolution 353), a recent letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Directors of the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute by seven Senators, and t
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