Vitamin E Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Vitamin E, including details on benefits, dosage, supplements, antioxidants.

Designing the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT).

Lippman SM, Goodman PJ, Klein EA, Parnes HL, Thompson IM, Kristal AR, Santella RM, Probstfield JL, Moinpour CM, Albanes D, Taylor PR, Minasian LM, Hoque A, Thomas SM, Crowley JJ, Gaziano JM, Stanford JL, Cook ED, Fleshner NE, Lieber MM, Walther PJ, Khuri FR, Karp DD, Schwartz GG, Ford LG, Coltman CA

The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030-4009, USA. slippman@mdanderson.org

Prostate cancer continues to be a major health threat, especially among African American men. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), which opened on July 25, 2001, was planned to study possible agents for the prevention of prostate cancer in a population of 32,400 men in the United States, including Puerto Rico, and Canada. SELECT is a phase III randomized, placebo-controlled trial of selenium (200 microg/day from L-selenomethionine) and/or vitamin E (400 IU/day of all rac alpha-tocopheryl acetate) supplementation for a minimum of 7 years (maximum of 12 years) in non-African American men at least 55 years of age and African American men at least 50 years of age. SELECT is a large, simple trial that conforms as closely as possible with community standards of care. This commentary discusses the design problems the SELECT investigators had to resolve in developing the trial, including the role of prostate cancer screening, the best forms and doses of the study agents, and estimation of the event (prostate cancer) rate of men on the placebo arm.

Published 19 January 2005 in J Natl Cancer Inst, 97(2): 94-102.
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