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CECOG was successful in holding two educational events, including the entire spectrum of colorectal cancer which was held in Prague under the chairmenship of Prof. Petruzelka and Prof. Scheithauer on April 13th-14th, 2000, and which was attended by more than 50 participants. A second educational event was a seminar on urological tumours and prostate cancer, held in Vienna under the chairmenship of Prof. Dobrowolski and Prof. Marberger on June 16th, 2000. Whereas educational activities in the field of clinical oncology are being done in cooperation with and according to standards of the European School of Oncology, the latter seminar was made possible by an unrestricted educational grant from Eli Lilly Company. The seminar on genetary-urinary cancers was attended by over 60 physicians from the area and a short report about this event is given below:

Urological Tumours and Prostate Cancer

Educational training is regarded as one of the most important activities of the CECOG group. On June 16th 2000 another training course was held in Vienna, organized in cooperation with the European School of Oncology. The scientific program, chaired by M. Marberger, Austria, and Z. Dobrowolski, Poland, was dealing with urological tumours and prostate cancer, thus touching a very challenging area of oncology.

Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent tumours in men, the incidence of which is steadily increasing with age, said Prof. Dr. M. Marberger. The treatment goal in the stage of localized disease is clearly a curative one and it is achievable, provided that the diagnosis is made at a very early stage. Radical prostatectomy is often the treatment strategy of choice leading to a high success rate but is associated with complications like incontinence and impotence. The use of modified techniques ("nerve sparing" retropubic prostatec-tomy) can reduce the risk of such complications and can thus contribute to the maintenance of quality of life.

Treatment of metastatic prostate cancer is a domain of androgen deprivation, according to Prof. Dr. B. Djavan, Vienna, Austria. The most effective approach on a theoretical basis is maximal androgen blockade (MAB), but only 40% of the patients will benefit and the survival advantage compared to a partial blockade is rather small (8-10% after 5 years). Therefore, LHRH agonists have become the pre-ferred therapy which is as effective as orchiectomy when used as a one month depot application. But what has still to be investigated is the optimal time for starting therapy (immediate versus delayed) and the optimal application modus (continuous versus intermittent).

Bladder cancer was the second main topic of this CECOG training course. As to the treatment of superficial bladder cancer, Prof. Dr. Z. Dobrowolski pointed out that chemotherapy + TUR seems to be more effective than TUR alone as far as the recurrence rate is concerned (34% versus 47%). But for most patients immunotherapy with BCG has become the treatment of choice due to its better efficacy compared to chemotherapy. In order to achieve an optimal result, repeated courses of BCG instillation might be necessary. But this has not been proven in randomized trials. Patients presenting with high risk for recurrence should be cystectomized rather early, because this will lead to a more favourable long term survival, said Z. Dobrowolski.

As to the treatment of metastatic disease a new study was presented by Prof. Dr. H van der Maase, DK, showing that the combination of gemcitabine + cisplatin is as effective as standard therapy with the MVAC regimen (reported in more detail on page 7). The most important finding of this study is that gemcitabine + cisplatin is associated with a more favourable tolerability and is therefore a promising alternative to MVAC, if not even the standard therapy of the future.

CECOG/ESO training course:
Urological Tumours and Prostate Cancer, June 16th 2000, Vienna

Please refer to further educational activities of this year.

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