(ANNOUNCER OPEN):
Healthy men age 55 and older are needed for the largest-ever prostate cancer prevention study, launched by the National Cancer Institute and a network of researchers known as the Southwest Oncology Group. More than 400 sites in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada are recruiting participants for SELECT, which will take up to 12 years to complete. Dr. Peter Greenwald of the National Cancer Institute says:

(GREENWALD):
"From several of our earlier studies we have leads that possibly, possibly vitamin E and selenium could lower your risk of prostate cancer, but we don't know for sure. The only way that we can tell for sure is to do a clinical trial. This trial will have 32,000 participants. They will either be taking a selenium pill or a placebo, or vitamin E, or a placebo for vitamin E. And they might take both selenium and vitamin E, or neither."

(JACKSON CLOSE):
Because prostate cancer strikes African-American men at a younger age, they are eligible to enroll in the study at age 50. People in the United States, including Puerto Rico, can obtain more information about SELECT and a list of participating centers by calling the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER. In Canada, call the Canadian Cancer Society's Cancer Information Service at 1-888-939-3333 for inofrmation in English and French. You can also visit the NCI website at http://cancer.gov/select . This is Calvin Jackson, the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.