Program Director: Robert E. Reiter, MD
Medical Director: Matthew Rettig, MD
Being diagnosed with prostate cancer is often the beginning of a stressful and confusing time in a man's life. Obtaining information about the disease and treatment options can often help reduce this stress and aid in the personal decision-making process. The UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology (the "IUO") and its multidisciplinary team of world-renown physicians and scientists are working together as a team to personalize patient care and to develop revolutionary treatments for men diagnosed with prostate cancer.
According to the American Cancer Society, this year approximately 180,900 people in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 26,000 people will die from this disease. Other than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men, anticipating that 1 in every 7 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime.
The UCLA IUO’s Prostate Cancer Program is a multidisciplinary comprehensive program offering the latest diagnostic tests, treatments, clinical trials and compassionate, individualized care. Patients of the IUO have the benefit of our long-held team approach to the treatment and management of prostate cancer that includes world-class urologic oncologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, radiologists and our clinical trials team of physicians and nurses. In particular, we have active unique multidisciplinary programs for the management of men with high-risk, recurrent, metastatic and castration-resistant prostate cancer.
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The UCLA IUO offers a variety of innovative diagnostic and treatment options to patients who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer, including MRI-guided biopsies, genomic testing, robotic-assisted surgery, as well as clinical trials.
UCLA has been a pioneer in the innovative, multidisciplinary, translational approach to care, including:
Treatment plans are individualized to each patient’s cancer grade and stage as well as current state of health. The management of prostate cancer requires extensive collaboration among specialists. The UCLA IUO holds bi-weekly conferences with a multidisciplinary team that provides a forum with diverse, specialized perspectives for deciding upon the best option for each individual patient.
UCLA urologist Robert Reiter, MD, presented a live-streaming webinar to discuss Ga-PSMA PET CT, a new method for detection and visualization of metastatic prostate cancer not previously visible with conventional and molecular imaging techniques. Ga-PSMA PET CT is now offered at UCLA and aims to improve management of recurrent and high-risk cancers.
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Jeremie Calais, MD, UCLA's Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and IUO, speaks at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and discusses the use of gallium-labelled PSMA-11 PET/CT imaging in the screening of prostate cancer.
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Learn more about how we diagnose and treat prostate cancer >
UCLA IUO’s Prostate Cancer Program is internationally recognized for its cutting-edge research. The Prostate Cancer Program is one of only two centers in the Western United States to be recognized by the National Cancer Institute as a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) for its translation of basic research into new diagnostic tests and treatments for men with prostate cancer. The Program has received more than 36 million dollars over the past 13 years to fund basic and translational research that has led to the discovery and development of Xtandi and ARN-509 for metastatic prostate cancer (by Drs. Charles Sawyers and chemist Michael Jung) and the development of novel imaging and diagnostic techniques including MRI, MRI-guided biopsy and PET imaging.
Learn more about our pioneering research >
UCLA IUO’s Prostate Cancer Program is a leader in providing clinical trial opportunities for men with all stages of prostate cancer, enabling our patients to have access to the newest and most innovative drugs and therapies. As a funded member of the Department of Defense’s Prostate Cancer Therapy Consortium, we have access to drugs and studies not available elsewhere in Southern California. We also have an active Precision Medicine Program that provides genomic testing to guide therapy decisions, particularly in advanced forms of prostate cancer.
At the UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology, clinical trials are not limited to metastatic cancers or patients who have failed other therapies. Our UCLA IUO doctors are able to provide access to new therapies at earlier stages of the disease. Using our research discoveries, the UCLA IUO offers our prostate cancer patients with high-risk disease early clinical trials such as our current neoadjuvant study comparing the newest forms of hormone therapy (e.g. Xtandi) with the same hormone therapy plus drugs that directly target cancer cells in men undergoing surgery. Another study in high-risk patients tests the combination of stereotactic radiation and surgery together as a promising way to advance the management of these patients. Using the newest imaging techniques, such as Ga-PSMA PET scans, to detect metastatic disease earlier than ever before, we are also testing novel treatment paradigms that combine, radiation, surgery and chemotherapy for men with early forms of metastatic prostate cancer. The results of these clinical trials will provide crucial information for the development of therapies that can improve the clinical outcome of patients with all forms of prostate cancer.
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For an appointment with a UCLA prostate cancer specialist, call (310) 794-7700.
