Department of Urology
SELECT (Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial)
As a SELECT participant, you will be a partner in medical research and may reduce your chance of getting prostate cancer. You will also have a chance to help future generations, including your sons and grandsons, become free of prostate cancer.
The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) is a very important research study taking place in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. SELECT is trying to find out if taking selenium and/or vitamin E supplements can prevent prostate cancer. We already have some evidence that selenium and vitamin E may be able to prevent prostate cancer, but we don’t know for sure.
SELECT is sponsored by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, a government agency and coordinated by a group of researchers known as the Southwest Oncology Group. The SELECT study is approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at SUNY Downstate. The IRB is responsible for the review and approval of research studies done at SUNY Downstate. Over 400 study sites in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico are enrolling men in SELECT. Approximately 32,00 men will participate in the study. We are seeking to enroll a large number of men from all minority groups to properly reflect the American population. This will ensure that the study results will be valid for minorities, not just European-Americans.
SUNY Downstate Medical Center is one of the sites enrolling men in SELECT and Dr. Richard J. Macchia, Professor and Chairman, Department of Urology, is the principal investigator. You may be able to participate in SELECT if you are a man: — age 55 or older, or an African-American man age 50 or older. This age difference
is because prostate cancer appears at younger ages in African-American men than in men of other ethnic groups.
— you have never had prostate cancer
— you have not had any other cancer for the last five years (except skin cancer)
— you are in generally good health
Karen Eisenberg, RN, MPS our study coordinator will be happy to meet with you and discuss the study. She will review a consent form with you that explains SELECT in more detail. Once you sign the consent form, you will be assigned by chance to take selenium, vitamin E, both, or inactive capsule called placebo that look like selenium and vitamin E. All capsules are provided free of charge. We will give you two bottles of capsules and you will take one capsule from each bottle every day. We will offer you and your significant other a free multivitamin that does not have selenium or vitamin E. If you are already taking supplements that contain selenium or vitamin E, we will ask you to stop taking them. You don’t need to change your diet.
You will come to SUNY Downstate Medical Center every six months to pick up new bottles of capsules and to discuss your progress in the study. We will ask you to be in the study for 7-12 years, depending on when you join. If you change your mind, you may leave the study at any time for any reason. Karen is available if anyone has any questions or problems.
If you are interested in participating, or want to find out more about the study, please call Karen Eisenberg, RN, MPS the SELECT Study Coordinator at (718) 270-3121.
