2010 February « THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

Are educated prostate cancer patients too smart for their own good?

Posted on February 27, 2010 by Sitemaster

A fascinating paper has just been published in BJU International suggesting that, “Higher education, income and functional capacity were associated with” poorer knowledge about their cancer, poorer understanding about treatment choices, and poorer judgement about survival with and without treatment among a group of 184 patients recently diagnosed with localized prostate cancer.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: education, income, judgment, knowledge, Treatment, understanding | 9 Comments »

Long-term statin/NSAID use and mortality of prostate cancer patients

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Sitemaster

Many papers have previously suggested an association between the long-term use of statins (e.g., simvastatin/Zocor and atorvastatin/Lipitor) or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, like aspirin), the risk of prostate cancer diagnosis, and the overall survival of men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Prevention, Treatment | Tagged: mortality, NSAID, overall, statin | Leave a Comment »

Focal therapy and one possible future for prostate cancer research

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Sitemaster

Historically, the treatment of localized prostate cancer has fallen into one of two general categories: (a) kill or surgically remove all of the prostate (and prostate cancer) cells in the patient or (b) monitor the patient until he needs hormone therapy (with the hope that he never does).

Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Does type of surgery make a difference to prostate cancer outcomes?

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Sitemaster

A new analysis of the outcomes of different types of radical prostatectomy appears to show no difference between the patients’ clinical outcomes following laparoscopic (including non-robot-assisted and robot-assisted) categories of surgery (LRP/RALP) and traditional “open” radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP) when used to treat Medicare patients of 66 years or older.

Filed under: Management, Treatment | Tagged: laparoscopic, LRP, outcome, radical, RALP, retropublic, robot-assisted, RRP, surgery | 1 Comment »

“We can all fight cancer better”

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Sitemaster

The title of this post is stolen (with full disclosure) from an article in The Huffington Post that appeared on February 20. The author of that article is a physician with a form of brain cancer who has been living with it for 17 years.

Filed under: Management, Prevention, Uncategorized | Tagged: lifestyle | Comments Off

Intetumumab in treatment of metastatic CRPC

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Sitemaster

In theory, one would hope that it would be possible to find an appropriate monoclonal antibody that could be used in combination with chemotherapy to treat patients with late stage prostate cancer and that would have significant impact on survival.

Filed under: Drugs in development | Tagged: castration-resistant, CNTO 95, CRPC, docetaxel, intetumumab, metastatic | Leave a Comment »

Prostate cancer news reports: Saturday, February 20, 2010

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Sitemaster

In today’s news reports we comment briefly on recent papers that deal with: Radical prostatectomy in men > 75 years of age The impact of anticoagulant therapy on clinical outcomes after radiation therapy The “feasibility” of pre-surgical, docetaxel-based chemotherapy in high-risk patients

Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: anticoagulant, chemotherapy, elderly, LRP, outcome, pre-surgical, radiation therapy, radical prostatectomy | 1 Comment »

Life expectancy and lifetime risk of prostate cancer mortality

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Sitemaster

The recently revised National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines for the management of prostate cancer emphasize the importance of life expectancy in estimating individual patient risk of prostate cancer mortality — particularly for those patients with low- and very low-risk disease.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: life expectancy, mortality, prostate cancer-specific | 8 Comments »

Prostate cancer news reports: Thursday, February 18, 2010

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Sitemaster

Today’s news reports include commentary on studies dealing with: Whether RALP outcomes are really comparable to those from RRP Surgical expertise, surgical caseload, and pelvic lymphadenectomy in treatment of intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer Sexual function after first-line treatment with SBRT (CyberKnife) Distinguishing true biochemical recurrence from a PSA “bounce” after 125I-based prostate brachytherapy

Filed under: Management, Treatment | Tagged: bounce, CyberKnife, ED, failure brachytherapy, LRP, lymphadenextomy, outcomes, PSA, RALP, robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy, SBRT, sexual function, stereotactic body radiotherapy | Leave a Comment »

An update on development of abiraterone acetate

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Sitemaster

On Tuesday this week, three papers about abiraterone acetate were published in the on-line version of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles are reports of data previously presented at various clinical/scientific meetings, but at least they are now available in a peer-reviewed journal.

Filed under: Drugs in development, Uncategorized | Tagged: abiraterone acetate, castration-resistant prostate cancer, CRPC | 14 Comments »

Radioisotope shortage may impact availability of bone scans

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Sitemaster

For some time we have been monitoring a problem with the supply of the radioisotopes used in bone scans for patients suspected to have metastatic prostate cancer to their bones.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Management | Tagged: bone scan, rasdioisotope, technectium-99m | 3 Comments »

Risk for positive surgical margins at the apex of the prostate

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Sitemaster

New research has suggested that “apical prostate depth” (as a measure of the anatomic situation of the prostate) is an independent risk factor for positive surgical margins at the apex (bottom) of the prostate at the time of radical prostatectomy.

Filed under: Management, Treatment | Tagged: anatomy, apex, positive surgical margin, PSM | Leave a Comment »

Tracking the costs of prostate cancer diagnosis and management

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Sitemaster

Two recent studies have examined the increasing economic burden of prostate cancer — in the USA and in selected European nations. The picture is not a pretty one.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Management, Treatment | Tagged: cost, Management | 3 Comments »

Suicide and cardiovascular mortality after a diagnosis of prostate cancer in the USA

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Sitemaster

In December last year, we commented on a paper that reported the short-term risks for cardiovascular mortality and suicide among Swedish men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1961 and 2004. A new study provides analogous data for American males diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1979 and 2004.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Risk | Tagged: cardiovascular mortality, risk, suicide | 2 Comments »

The marketing of RALP: 2002 to 2010

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Sitemaster

Many readers may be interested in an article by Gina Kolata in Saturday’s New York Times on the rapid uptake of robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) for the first-line treatment prostate cancer.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: marketing, RALP, robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy | Comments Off

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