Site News
UK Prostate Link secures future funding
UK Prostate Link has been awarded funding for the next 12 months, with agreement in principle for three years. The Department of Health, signatory organisations of the Prostate Cancer Charter for Action and sanofi-aventis have combined to meet the costs of the project going forward.
John Neate, chair of the Steering Group, said "I am delighted we have been able to identify funding to enable the website to continue to a new phase."
We are very grateful to all these organisations for agreeing to fund UK Prostate Link which is growing strongly in visitor numbers.
New site: The PROSDEX Decision Tool
PROSDEX is an online decision tool which provides an overview of the issues behind deciding whether to have a PSA Test. The target audience is patients who are worried that they might have prostate cancer and are considering a PSA test.
PROSDEX is delivered using Flash (so you’ll need a browser plug-in to view it) and is clearly laid out in three main sections:
- The PSA Test
- It’s Your Choice
- Prostate Cancer
Each section features:
- Clear descriptions of key concepts
- Animations giving a visual overview of key concepts
- Videos of patient experiences
- Questions to ask your doctor
- Hints on how to frame your thoughts on PSA testing
- An online tool for you to record the pros and cons of PSA testing from your perspective.
There are a couple of key technical failings, however. There appears to be no way to save your progress, so when you come back to the site, you’re back at square one. Secondly, if you click the Back button on your browser at any time, it takes you right back to the splash screen at the front of the site.
PROSDEX has not been updated since 2005, and there is no evidence of an updating process. So although the overall message hasn’t changed much, we’d expect the content to become out of date as new research appears.
On the plus side, PROSDEX is transparent about how (and by whom) it was produced, and cites and extensive (if outdated!) bibliography.
:
Abiraterone in the news
It’s great to see prostate cancer research getting a media profile. A phase 1 clinical trial of abiraterone has shown very promising results in men with hormone-refractory prostate cancer.
Because this story prompted a few of you to request further information, we went out and got it. Both of these articles provide explanations of the terminology and importance of this research:
