In honor of veterans this month, we reflect on the remarkable advancements in prostate cancer care made possible by the tireless work of providers and researchers through the PCF-VA partnership across the U.S., and by the generous support of donors.
Addressing an Unmet Need
The Prostate Cancer Foundation’s partnership with the VA began in 2016. PCF’s expertise and track record as the leading funder of prostate cancer research was a natural match for the VA. The need was significant: prostate cancer is the most-diagnosed cancer in the VA system, with 15,000 new diagnoses annually.
In addition, PCF’s Veterans Health Initiative aims to deliver care to veterans that is as good or better than any private treatment available, while providing a roadmap for the application of cutting-edge precision oncology for all forms of cancer, to benefit everyone.
In its first five years, the PCF-VA partnership focused on precision oncology, a transformative approach that aims to deliver the right treatment to the right patient. Additionally, by ensuring top-tier care for every veteran, the partnership significantly reduces disparities in prostate cancer survival rates among Black men within the VA patient population.
To advance the mission and scope of this important initiative, PCF partnered with philanthropists to invest in prostate cancer-focused Centers of Excellence (CoEs) at VA medical centers across the country. Each CoE is affiliated with an academic institution and a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Center in a hub-and-spoke model. In this way, VA research can reach and influence medical centers in diverse geographic regions.
Reaching More Veterans
In 2022, seven more PCF-VA CoEs were added, bringing the current total number of sites to 22. Most recently, CoEs provided care for more than 119,000 veterans living with prostate cancer including tens of thousands of clinical visits for veterans with metastatic forms of the disease. Currently, the PCF-VA Network includes more than 200 investigators and healthcare providers who work closely together to promote quality research and avert death and suffering. Their focus also has broadened to include other genitourinary malignancies such as bladder and kidney cancer.
The advances from this program have been scalable and available to veterans outside the geographic reach of the nationwide network of centers. This means a serviceman in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, can have the same access to care that a civilian might receive from top medical institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
How the VA is Addressing Prostate Cancer Disparities
Black men are more likely to be diagnosed with and die from prostate cancer. The patients served by the VA include a relatively larger proportion of Black men, making this partnership a particularly important strategy for improving care for this historically underserved population.
Black men with prostate cancer in the VA system have equal outcomes to white men under this equal-access health care system. Dr. Richard Stone, the former leader of the Veterans Health Administration, noted that “[w]e think that is a testament to the [PCF-VA] partnership.”
Innovation In Progress: Current PCF-Funded Research in the VA
Generous PCF donors make it possible for us to fund research awards to investigators in the VA. As just one example, with a 2022 Movember-PCF VAlor Challenge Award, Isla Garraway, MD, PhD of the Greater Los Angeles VA Medical Center, Kara Maxwell, MD, PhD of the Corporal Michael J.Crescenz VAMC, and other investigators are leveraging the vast amounts of de-identified health data in the VA medical record system. The team is analyzing data from over 500,000 Veterans to identify clinical, social, genetic, and environmental (e.g., toxic exposures) factors that contribute to prostate cancer racial disparities, with the ultimate goal of better predicting prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness. This will allow clinicians to customize screening and treatment for each individual patient.
If you are a Veteran and would like more information on accessing clinical trials and care in the VA, please call or email: Laura Onstad, RN at (503) 721-1060 or email at [email protected].