I want to pass on some information that newly diagnosed men absolutely should consider. It is from the excellent blog "Palpable Prostate" by A. Black. The gist of this is that for intermediate- and higher-grade PC pts (GL 7+, PSA 10+), *open* surgery for PC is considered preferable to laparascopic (which includes robotic) surgery by [...]
I am including an excerpt from a blog post written by Dr. Michael Glode, an experienced genitourinary oncologist. I highly recommend his site because what you get from Dr. Glode is straight talk. Dr. Glode writes that he's had reservations about robotic prostate surgery for a long time. He acknowledges that it is now seen by urologists as the [...]
There is an article in today's New York Times in which the author describes his thought processes as he went about first choosing a treatment and then a doctor after he was diagnosed with PC. Trouble is the guy is a newbie who doesn't know anything but thinks he does . But didn't we all?? I think [...]
I initially posted my previous message about depression and PC treatment on a site I have been frequenting which brings together people from diverse backgrounds. You might be interested to read the responses I got, which came from a broad spectrum of the PC community: patients and their partners, a surgeon, psychiatrist, psychologist, a number of patient advocates and [...]
All serious illnesses cause emotional distress. But prostate cancer patients may be even more vulnerable. This is because treatments for PC often cause erectile dysfunction (in at least 50% of men who've had RP, for example), which is highly correlated with depression. Also, some men who've undergone treatment have been left with distressing side effects [...]
Faster Cures is a novel organization created by the financier Michael Milken, who also founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Faster Cures' goal is to find new ways to bring drugs to market faster -- the average is 17 years from conception to the time the drug hits the market. Faster Cures sends me a newsletter, and in this issue, they [...]
The problem of overtreatment of prostate cancer is well-known. Many invasive, aggressive treatments are performed on men whose cancer would never pose a threat to their lives anyway. And they are often left with nasty side effects, physical and emotional. So a well-known PC pathologist, Dr. Jonathan Oppenheimer, proposes a solution: Let's call the low-grade tumors [...]
I just saw that Dana Jennings, who writes a blog about his prostate cancer for the NYT, is discussing language and cancer. So I recycled this essay I wrote some time back. It amazes me that doctors still use the word biochemical failure to refer to a recurrence of prostate cancer. A doctor told me, [...]
This is a follow-up to the previous posting. Please read that first. Following is an editorial by Dr. Michael Blute of the Mayo Clinic urology faculty. He is commenting on a study by Dr. Hu which compared laparascopic and open surgery. I am going to cite the entire article almost verbatim and I have emphasized parts that I [...]
A lot of you may be currently using injectible meds such as Caverject, Trimix or Bimix for ED. Or you will be starting the treatment soon. Yesterday a man asked me for some information about injection therapy, so I'm going to share with all of you what I sent to him. It might be useful to others. I [...]
