THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

Today’s news reports address:

• Diabetes and prostate cancer risk among Japanese men
• The accuracy of T2w ecMRI in detection of prostate cancer
• Escalated dose radiation therapy and treatment of localized prostate cancer
• Erectile dysfunction and penile rehabilitation post-surgery

Li et al. have shown that a history of diabetes is associated with an increased risk for advanced prostate cancer in a population-based cohort study of > 22,000 Japanese men, but there was no association between a history of diabetes and overall risk for prostate cancer.

Roethke et al. have demonstrated that T2-weighted, endorectal-coil magnetic resonance imaging (T2w ecMRI) using a 1.5 T scanner had a good (but less than perfect) rate of detection of prostate cancer tumors of > 1.6 cm³. By comparison, this form of imaging was significantly less accurate at detecting smaller tumors, and detected 0/56 (0 percent) of tumors < 0.3 cm³ and only 26/285 (9 percent) of tumors between 0.3 and 1.0 cm³, while also identifying 40 false positive lesions.

Higher, carefully focused doses of radiation have become the norm in the past decade. However, it is worth noting that, according to Al-Mamgani et al., in a subgroup analysis of a Dutch trial comparing external beam radiation therapy with 68 Gy as compared to 78 Gy of radiation, only the intermediate-risk patients with localized prostate cancer gained a clinically important degree of benefit from the higher dose of radiation.

Garcia and Brock, noting that penile rehabilitation post-surgery is among the most controversial issues in the management of prostate cancer, have reviewed a wide range of issues related to the causes of erectile dysfunction post-surgery and the prevention and management of this problem.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: diabetes, endorectal coil, erectile dysfunction, MRI, penile rehabilitation, radiotherapy, risk |