Brachytherapy: is it really “better” as a first-line treatment for low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Sitemaster

An analysis of data on treatment of nearly 137,500 men treated for prostate cancer between 1991 and 2007 has suggested that permanent seed brachytherapy may be safer, less costly, and at least as effective as any other widely available form of first-line therapy for men with low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer.

Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Treatment | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Nerve-sparing surgery and post-surgical sexual function: news from Kyoto

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Sitemaster

According to a report from Prof. Thomas Aherling on the UroToday web site, there were three interesting presentations related to nerve-sparing surgery at the recent World Conference of Endourology and SWL, in Kyoto Japan.

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Hazard for prostate cancer-specific mortality after radical prostatectomy

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Sitemaster

A new analysis of information from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database suggests that the “hazard” for prostate cancer-specific mortality after radical prostatectomy is very low but that it does increase in a continuous manner for at least 15 years post-treatment.

Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management | Tagged: , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Sex after RP — it’s out there on the radio

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Sitemaster

Many readers of The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink may be interested in listening to or reading the transcript of a program on Science Friday on National Public Radio that aired last Monday.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

U.S. FDA approves NADiA ProsVue prognostic test for prostate cancer

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Sitemaster

According to a media release issued on Thursday by IRIS International, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the company’s NADiA® ProsVue™ test as a prognostic marker that can “aid in identifying” men at reduced risk for recurrence of prostate cancer in the first 8 years after a prostatectomy.

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Predicting sexual function after first-line treatment for prostate cancer

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Sitemaster

A newly published report in the Journal of the American Medical Association provides data (from two large cohorts of patients) on the quality of sexual function among men undergoing first-line treatment for localized prostate cancer.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Treatment, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Positive surgical margins, systemic disease, and prostate cancer-specific mortality

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Sitemaster

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have queried their large, nearly 20-year-long database of men who have undergone radical prostatectomy in an attempt to assess the correlation between positive surgical margins at the time of surgery and subsequent occurence of systemic disease or prostate cancer-specific mortality.

Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Treatment | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

A new way to look at side effects of first-line prostate cancer treatment

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Sitemaster

Academic research into the side effects of different treatments for localized prostate cancer have long been hampered by the lack of consistently used criteria for the assessment of those side effects at baseline and at defined time-periods post-treatment.

Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Treatment | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The role of radical prostatectomy in older males with high-risk prostate cancer

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Sitemaster

Data reported earlier this year from the PIVOT study and separately from the long-term Scandinavian study have shown that the surgical treatment of prostate cancer in the patients enrolled in these trials showed no median prostate-cancer specific or overall survival benefit compared to watchful waiting in patients of > 65 years of age.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Risk stratification of men with high-risk prostate cancer prior to first-line surgery

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Sitemaster

A new French study has attempted to provide a better appreciation of the effect of predictive factors on the biochemical recurrence-free and overall survival of patients with high-risk prostate cancer after a radical prostatectomy (RP).

Filed under: Diagnosis, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Long-term QoL of men in the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group 4 clinical trial

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Sitemaster

In 1989 the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group Study Number 4 (SPCG-4) started randomizing men with a clinically initiated diagnosis of localized prostate cancer to either watchful waiting or open radical prostatectomy as their primary treatment. A new paper has now addressed the long-term quality of life (QoL) of men in this study.

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Immediate adjuvant therapy for men with positive surgical margins after RP

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Sitemaster

There are no absolute guidelines as to which patients who have positive surgical margins after a radical prostatectomy (RP) are most appropriate for immediate adjuvant radiation therapy (with or without neoadjuvant and/or adjuvant hormone therapy).

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

Incidence of climacturia “surprising” to one leading surgeon

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Sitemaster

It is sometimes amazing how little some physicians appear to understand about the side effects of the treatments that they give to their patients! If these were really rare side effects it might be understandable, but the one we shall discuss below is far from rare …

Filed under: Management, Treatment | Tagged: , , , , | 7 Comments »

Retrospective cohort analysis shows mortality benefit in prostate cancer (but there’s a big “however”)

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Sitemaster

A new report in European Urology may offer some insights into the value of large, retrospective data analyses as compared to multi-center, randomized clinical trials when it comes to the assessment of the effects of different first-line treatments on the management of clinically localized prostate cancer.

Filed under: Management, Treatment, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

Are clinical benefits of RALP being over-hyped to unsuspecting prostate cancer patients?

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Sitemaster

Back in March, a group of authors from three major medical centers published a report in the Journal for Healthcare Quality strongly suggesting that U.S. hospitals were inappropriately over-promoting the  use of robot-assisted surgery for treatment of prostate cancer.

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