SATURDAY, Oct. 5 (HealthScoutNews) -- Researchers at the UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center recently launched a wide-ranging study on ways to prevent smoking-related bladder cancer.

The $5.9-million program has a number of objectives. They include: development of biomarker tests to help predict who will get bladder cancer; discovering the molecular profile of the disease to identify people who are most at risk; a clinical trial of green tea extract and the experimental drug Iressa to determine how effective they are in bladder cancer prevention; and creation of a tumor bank to assist research into bladder cancer. The five-year effort is funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute and is the largest prevention study in the United States to focus on bladder cancer in current and former smokers. Smoking is a major risk factor for bladder cancer, says the project's principal investigator, Dr. Arie Belldegrun, chief of the cancer center's urologic oncology division. "We will study innovative approaches to reduce the risk of bladder cancer. And while we'll study prevention in patients who already have bladder cancer, our goal is to develop effective prevention strategies for people who may be at risk, but who do not yet have bladder cancer," Belldegrun says. This year, health estimates predict there will be 56,500 cases of bladder cancer diagnosed in the United States and 12,600 people will die from it.

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