Exceptions to “early salvage” radiation treatment for recurrence after prostatectomy

Three major randomized clinical trials and a meta-analysis have proved that for most men waiting for early signs of recurrence after prostatectomy (e.g., three consecutive PSA rises or a PSA of 0.1 ng/ml) to give radiation gave the same outcome as immediate (“adjuvant”) radiation (see this link). But there are exceptions. … READ MORE …

More than 25 organizations join new Prostate Cancer Impact Alliance

Prostate Cancer International (PCaI) is proud to be an inaugural member of the new Prostate Cancer Impact Alliance (PCIA). PCIA’s shared vision is to advance education, research and equitable access to high quality care to better patient outcomes for men with prostate cancer. … READ MORE …

Whole-pelvic radiation therapy for high-risk patients

The decision about whether or not to treat the entire pelvic lymph node area along with the prostate (called whole pelvic radiation therapy or WPRT) or to treat just the prostate with a margin around it (called prostate-only radiation therapy or PORT) has long been a matter of judgment. … READ MORE …

Fear of prostate cancer recurrence post-surgery

A new paper by Meissner et al. has reported important, long-term data on fear of recurrence and biochemical progression of prostate cancer among a large cohort of German patients undergoing radical prostatectomy. … READ MORE …

RP vs. RT as first-line treatment for prostate cancer: that word “may” again

A newly published commentary on the CancerNetwork web site is entitled, “Radical prostatectomy as primary treatment for prostate cancer leads to better survival.” … READ MORE …

High-dose vitamin D: negative results from a randomized clinical trial

Data from a recently published, Canadian, clinical trial of high-dose vitamin D as a method to strengthen bones in healthy adults who do not have osteoporesis have had significant and unexpectedly negative results. … READ MORE …

Patient-reported outcomes and the management of prostate cancer

Andrew Vickers, PhD, who works at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, is not a physician. He is a statistician and a research methodologist. And he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board to The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink. … READ MORE …

ENZAMET trial results to be presented at ASCO

The results of the 1,125-patient, randomized, double-blind ENZAMET trial are to be reported in a late-breaking abstract at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago. … READ MORE …

Low-dose aspirin and prostate cancer-specific mortality

A newly published article — and an associated editorial — in the Annals of Internal Medicine has addressed the possible benefits of taking low-dose aspirin as a method to prevent the progression of newly diagnosed prostate cancer. … READ MORE …

Positive outcomes for apalutamide in the treatment of mHSPC

According to a media release issued late yesterday by Johnson & Johnson, the combination of apalutamide (Erleada) + androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has met the primary study endpoints in the so-called TITAN trial. … READ MORE …

Is time to biochemical failure a good surrogate endpoint for overall survival?

For many years researchers have been trying to identify so-called “surrogate” endpoints that can be used to predict overall and prostate cancer-specific survival with high accuracy. … READ MORE …

Age-related risks of radical prostatectomy

It will hardly come as a surprise to most prostate cancer support group leaders and other prostate cancer advocates that there is a strong association between patient age and risk for side effects of radical prostatectomy. … READ MORE …

Can MRI data improve decision-making about the need for a biopsy?

Last week we noted that adding MRI data to the Partin tables and to the Kattan/MSKCC nomograms did not seem to improve the accuracy of prognosis of outcomes after radical prostatectomy. … READ MORE …

ADT + enzalutamide in mHSPC … outcome of the ARCHES trial

Pfizer and Astellas have, this morning, announced that the addition of enzalutamide to standard androgen deprivation (ADT) has led to improved outcomes in men with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC). … READ MORE …

Pembrolizumab in treatment of advanced prostate cancer

We finally have some published data — albeit not a lot — on the use of one of the PD-1 inhibitors (pembrolizumab, also known as Keytruda) in the treatment of late-stage prostate cancer. … READ MORE …