The Department of Defense Center for Prostate Disease Research

In 1991, the United States Congress expressed a growing concern over the incidence of prostate cancer and the controversy over the optimal treatment of the various stages of the disease. Congress also supported the need for both basic and clinical research in prostate cancer in order to reduce the incidence of this life-threatening disease and to develop more effective, more specific, and less toxic forms of therapy for patients in all stages. Pursuant to discussions at various levels of military medicine, Congress provided funding in fiscal year 1992 to establish a Center for Prostate Disease Research. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), Bethesda, Maryland, was designated to provide for the establishment and administration of the Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR) as authorized in public law no. 102-172.

The F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine of USUHS directs the CPDR program, and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in Rockville, Maryland provides administrative and collaborative support. The CPDR has been directed through the collaborative efforts of Norman M. Rich, MD, chairman, Department of Surgery, USUHS, David O. McLeod, MD, chief of urology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Judd W. Moul, MD, associate professor of surgery. Dr. (Lieutenant Colonel) Moul was named director of the CPDR program in 1992. An executive board was established to provide general direction and guidance for the program.

The center initially focused on three major aims:

The establishment of a Clinical Trials Research Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to serve as a model for other military sites.

The establishment of a Molecular Biology Research Program at USUHS.

The development of a triservice Multicenter National Prostate Cancer Longitudinal Database.

An endowment support program and endowed chairs in basic science and clinical sciences have been established to provide for these long-term scientific endeavors. The endowments also provide for a CPDR administrative core to initiate clinical studies and allow for the translation of the rapid advances in molecular and genetic medicine to the study of human prostate cancer.

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